People: The Dog House

Into Manhattan’s plushy La Rue restaurant went the ex-Countess Margot de la Falaise (exwife of Count Alain, brother of Marquis Henri, ex of Gloria Swanson. Constance Bennett), together with Dukie, her bulldog, Paul O. Buckley, her husband of three days, and four friends. Because Dukie was charged $3 for a dinner which she thought he didn’t get, she slapped the proprietor’s face and everybody ended up in Night Court. ∙∙Tobacco Road’s longtime Jeeter Lester, James Barton, was arrested by the S.P.C.A. charged with letting nine of his dogs live like the Lesters—mangy, flea-and fly-bitten, sore-splotched, in a “filthy and unclean kennel” in Garden City Park, L.I. His wife Katherine explained: Jim picks up strays; most of the animals are 12 to 14 years old, several are blind, they have a naturally neglected look.