ernal dog of yours. I insist on your destroying it."

"What's it been doing?"

"The savage brute chased me all over the garden and kept me sitting up
on that damned castle the whole of the morning!"

"Father darling," interposed Billie, pausing on her way up the stairs,
"you mustn't get excited. You know it's bad for you. I don't expect poor
old Smith meant any harm," she added pacifically, as she disappeared in
the direction of the landing.

"Of course he didn't," snapped Mr. Mortimer. "He's as quiet as a lamb."

"I tell you he chased me from one end of the garden to the other! I had
to run like a hare!"

The unfortunate Bream, whose sense of the humorous was simple and
childlike, was not proof against the picture thus conjured up.

"C'k!" giggled Bream helplessly. "C'k, c'k, c'k!"

Mr. Bennett turned on him. "Oh, it strikes you as funny, does it? Well,
let me tell you that if you think you can laugh at me
with--with--er--with one hand and--and--marry my daughter with the
other, you're wrong! You can consider your engagement at an end."

"Oh, I say!" ejaculated Bream, abruptly sobered.

"Mortimer!" bawled Mr. Bennett, once more arresting the other as he was
about to mount the stairs. "Do you or do you not intend to destroy that
dog?"

"I do not."

"I insist on your doing so. He is a menace."

"He is nothing of the kind. On your own showing he didn't even bite you
once. And every dog is allowed one bite by law. The case of Wilberforce
_v._ Bayliss covers that point thoroughly."

"I don't care about the case of Wilberforce and Bayliss...."

"You will find that you have to. It is a legal precedent."

There is something about a legal precedent which gives pause to the
angriest man. Mr. Bennett felt, as every layman feels when arguing with
a lawyer, as if he were in the coils of a python.

"Say, Mr. Bennett...." began Bream at his elbow.

"Get out!" snarled Mr. Bennett.

"Yes, but, say...!"

The green baize door at the end of the hall opened, and Webster
appeared.

"I beg your pardon, sir," said Webster, "but luncheon will be served
within the next few minutes. Possibly you may wish to make some change
of costume."

"Bring me my lunch on a tray in my room," said Mr. Bennett. "I am going
to bed."

"Very good, sir."

"But, say, Mr. Bennett...." resumed Bream.

"Grrh!" replied his ex-prospective-father-in-law, and bounded up the
stairs like a portion of the sunset which had become detached from