u was to ask Mort if he has agreed to pay--how much is
it all told?--twenty-eight dollars--if he has agreed to pay all that
money for _nothin'_, he'd order you out of his store."

"Mrs. Fryback told my wife a couple of weeks ago that Marmaduke was a
prize bull, and she wouldn't take a hundred dollars for him," said Newt
Spratt. "Seems that she had somebody look up his pedigree, and he turns
out to be a stepson or something like that of a dog that won first prize
at a bench show--whatever that is--in New York City."

"Ever since that actress woman was here last fall,--that friend of Harry
Squires, I mean,--every derned dog in town has turned out to be related
some way or other to a thoroughbred animal in some other city," said
Alf. "Why, even that mangy shepherd dog of Deacon Rank's--accordin' to
Mrs. Rank--is a direct descendant of two of the finest Boston terriers
that ever came out of Boston. She told me so herself, but, of course, I
couldn't ask how he happened to look so much like a shepherd dog and so
little like his parents, 'cause there's no use makin' poor Mrs. Rank
any more miserable than she already is--she certainly don't get any fun
out of life, livin' with the deacon from one year's end to the other.
Yes, sir; just because that actress woman paraded around here for a
month or so last fall with a French poodle, is no reason, far as I can
see, why all the women in town should begin puttin' leashes on their
dogs and washin' 'em and trimmin' 'em and tying red ribbons around their
necks--yes, and around some of their tails, too. I'll never forget that
stub-tail dog of Angie Nixon's going around with a blue bow stickin'
straight up behind him, and lookin' as though he'd lost something and
got dizzy looking for it. And Mort's dog, Mike--poor old Mike,--why, he
got so he'd go down to Hawkins' undertakin' shop every time he could get
a minute off and bark till Lem would let him in, and then he'd lay down
in a corner and go to sleep, and Lem always swore the poor dog was as
mad as a hornet when he woke up and found he was still alive."

"What puzzles me is why Mort Fryback's offerin' this reward, and all
that, if he knows the dog is dead. It costs money to have bills like
this printed at the _Banner_ office." So spoke Elmer Pratt, the
photographer. "Wasn't he present at the obsequies?"

"No, he wasn't," said Alf. "He claims now that he don't know anything
about it, and, besides, Bill Kepsal says he'll beat the head