t,
sir? Want to go out with me, eh? Very well; but you must promise to
behave yourself. I'll have you talking to no poor-dog trash, mind."
Jove promised unutterable things. "Come on, then."

He walked slowly down town, his cane behind his back, his chin in his
collar, deep in meditation. He knew instinctively that Mrs. Bennington
wanted to talk to him about the coming marriage. He determined to tell
her the truth, truth that would set her mother's heart at peace.

Jove ran hither and thither importantly. It was good to be out with
the master. He ran into this yard and that, scared a cat up a tree,
chased the sparrows, and grumbled at the other dogs he saw. All at
once he paused, stiffened, each muscle tense. Warrington, catching the
pose, looked up. A handsome trotter was coming along at a walk. In the
light road-wagon sat a man and a white bulldog. It was easy for
Warrington to recognize McQuade, who in turn knew that this
good-looking young man must be the dramatist. The two glanced at each
other casually. They were unacquainted. Not so the dogs. They had met.
The white bull teetered on the seat. Jove bared his strong teeth. How
he hated that sleek white brute up there! He would have given his life
for one good hold on that broad throat. The white dog was thinking,
too. Some day, when the time came, he would clean the slate. Once he
had almost had the tan for his own. And he hated the girl who had
beaten him off with her heavy riding-crop.

McQuade drove on, and Warrington resumed his interrupted study of the
sidewalk. McQuade thought nothing more about the fellow who wrote
plays, and the dramatist had no place in his mind for the petty
affairs of the politician. Fate, however, moves quite as certainly and
mysteriously as the cosmic law. The bitter feud between these two men
began with their dogs.

At the club Warrington found a few lonely bachelors, who welcomed him
to the long table in the grill-room; but he was in no mood for gossip
and whisky. He ordered a lithia, drank it quickly, and escaped to the
reading-room to write some letters.

Down in the grill-room they talked him over.

"I don't know whether he boozes now, but he used to be tanked quite
regularly," said one.

"Yes, and they say he writes best when half-seas over."

"Evidently," said a third, "he doesn't drink unless he wants to; and
that's more than most of us can say."

"Pshaw! Sunday's clearing-up day; nobody drinks much on Sunday. I
wond