He sat on the back seat of the bus, with the hare in a basket. Several countrymen were sitting at the back, so they could smoke. When they spotted the hare, they started building a conversation round it. There were, it was soon established, more leverets than usual this summer. They tried to guess: was it a doe or a buck? Did he intend to slaughter and eat the hare when it was fully grown? No, he had no intention, he said. That led to a general consensus: no one would kill his own dog; and it was sometimes easier to get attached to an animal than a person.