," Johnny volunteered.

"Can't stand up on hind legs," Collins negatived. "Besides, nothing like
the limit in a turn like that. This dog's got a specially. He ain't
ordinary. He does some unusual thing unusually well, and it's up to us
to locate it. That comes of Harry dying so inconsiderately and leaving
this puzzle-box on my hands. I see I just got to devote myself to him.
Take him away, Johnny. Number Eighteen for him. Later on we can put him
in the single compartments."

CHAPTER XXVI

Number Eighteen was a big compartment or cage in the dog row, large
enough with due comfort for a dozen Irish terriers like Michael. For
Harris Collins was scientific. Dogs on vacation, boarding at the
Cedarwild Animal School, were given every opportunity to recuperate from
the hardships and wear and tear of from six months to a year and more on
the road. It was for this reason that the school was so popular a
boarding-place for performing animals when the owners were on vacation or
out of "time." Harris Collins kept his animals clean and comfortable and
guarded from germ diseases. In short, he renovated them against their
next trips out on vaudeville time or circus engagement.

To the left of Michael, in Number Seventeen, were five grotesquely
clipped French poodles. Michael could not see them, save when he was
being taken out or brought back, but he could smell them and hear them,
and, in his loneliness, he even started a feud of snarling bickeringness
with Pedro, the biggest of them who acted as clown in their turn. They
were aristocrats among performing animals, and Michael's feud with Pedro
was not so much real as play-acted. Had he and Pedro been brought
together they would have made friends in no time. But through the slow
monotonous drag of the hours they developed a fictitious excitement and
interest in mouthing their quarrel which each knew in his heart of hearts
was no quarrel at all.

In Number Nineteen, on Michael's right, was a sad and tragic company.
They were mongrels, kept spotlessly and germicidally clean, who were
unattached and untrained. They composed a sort of reserve of raw
material, to be worked into established troupes when an extra one or a
substitute was needed. This meant the hell of the arena where the
training went on. Also, in spare moments, Collins, or his assistants,
were for ever trying them out with all manner of tricks in the quest of
special aptitudes on their parts.