."

"But Ed--" sputtered his wife.

"Now, you let ME do the talking, Sade!" he insisted, half-grinning, yet
more than half grimly. "I'm the boss here. If I'm not, then it's safe
to listen to me till the boss gets here. And we're goin' to do whatever
I say we are--without any back-talk or sulks, either. It's this way:
Your brother gave the boy a birthday check. We promised he could spend
it any way he had a mind to. He said he wanted a dog, didn't he? And I
said, 'Go to it!' didn't I? Well, he got the dog. Just because it
happens to be a she, that's no reason why he oughtn't to be allowed to
keep it. And he can. That goes."

"Oh, Dad!" squealed Dick in grateful heroworship. "You're a brick! I'm
not ever going to forget this, so long as I live. Say, watch her shake
hands, Dad! I've taught her, already, to--"

"Ed Hazen!" loudly protested his wife. "Of all the softies! You haven't
backbone enough for a prune. And if my orders to my own son are going
to be--"

"That'll be all, Sade!" interposed the man stiffly--adding: "By the
way, I got a queer piece of news to tell you. Come into the kitchen a
minute."

Grumbling, rebellious, scowling,--yet unable to resist the lure of a
"queer piece of news," Mrs. Hazen followed her husband indoors, leaving
Dick and his pet to gambol deliriously around the clothes-festooned
yard in celebration of their victory.

"Listen here, old girl!" began Hazen the moment the kitchen door was
shut behind them. "Use some sense, can't you? I gave you the wink, and
you wouldn't catch on. So I had to make the grandstand play. I'm no
more stuck on having a measly she-dog around here than you are. And
we're not going to have her, either. But--"

"Then why did you say you were going to? Why did you make a fool of me
before Irene and everything?" she demanded, wrathful yet bewildered.

"It's the boy's birthday, isn't it?" urged Hazen. "And I'd promised
him, hadn't I? And, last time he had one of those 'turns,' didn't Doc
Colfax say we mustn't let him fret and worry any more'n we could help?
Well, if he had to take that dog back to-day, it'd have broke his
heart. He'd have felt like we were his enemies, and he'd never have
felt the same to us again. And it might have hurt his health too--the
shock and all. So--"

"But I tell you," she persisted, "I won't have a dirty little female--"

"We aren't going to," he assured her. "Keep your hair on, till I've
finished. Tonight, after Dick's asleep, I'm