vered an acquaintance on the far side of the
ring and bustled off to speak to him. The Master, you see, was a
husband, not a hero.

The Mistress turned a worried gaze on the superintendent.

"It was best, I suppose," she said bravely. "We agreed he must be sold,
if the judge decided he was not any good. But I'm sorry. For I'm fond
of him. I'm sorry he is going to live in New York, too. A big city is
no place for a big dog. I hope this Dr. Halding will be nice to the
poor puppy."

"Dr.--WHO?" sharply queried the superintendent, who had not caught the
name when the Master had spoken it in his rapid-fire speech. "Dr.
Halding? Of New York? Huh!

"You needn't worry about the effect of city life on your dog," he went
on with venomous bitterness. "The pup won't have a very long spell of
it. If I had my way, that man Halding would be barred from every
dog-show and stuck in jail. It's an old trick of his, to buy up
thoroughbreds, cheap, at shows. The bigger and the stronger they are,
the more he pays for them. He seems to think pedigreed dogs are better
for his filthy purposes than street curs. They have a higher nervous
organism, I suppose. The swine!"

"What do you mean?" asked the Mistress, puzzled by his vehemence. "I
don't--"

"You must have heard of Halding and his so-called 'research work,'" the
superintendent went on. "He is one of the most notorious
vivisectionists in--"

The superintendent got no further. He was talking to empty air. The
Mistress had fled. Her determined small figure made a tumbled wake
through the crowd as she sped toward Bruce's bench. The puppy was no
longer there. In another second the Mistress was at the door of the
building.

A line of parked cars was stretched across the opposite side of the
village street. Into one of these cars a large and loose-jointed man
was lifting a large and loose-jointed dog. The dog did not like his
treatment, and was struggling pathetically in vain awkwardness to get
free.

"Bruce!" called the Mistress, fiercely, as she dashed across the street.

The puppy heard the familiar voice and howled for release. Dr. Halding
struck him roughly over the head and scrambled into the machine with
him, reaching with his one disengaged hand for the self-starter button.
Before he could touch it, the Mistress was on the running-board of the
car.

As she ran, she had opened her wristbag. Now, flinging on the
runabout's seat a ten and a five-dollar bill, she demanded--