the Black family was around. Beautiful Dog
rolled his eyes at his god, swung his tail, waggled his ears, made
uncouth movements with his splay feet, and grinned from ear to ear.
He was so utterly absurd that he claimed everybody's amused
attention.

"Why, old chap! You're rather glad to see your friends, aren't you?"
the secretary said in his pleasant voice.

Beautiful Dog yelped with rapture, darted back into the shrubbery,
and a moment later emerged and laid at his adored one's feet all his
treasure, a chewed slipper. He tried to say that precious as this
gift undoubtedly was, he gave it willingly, joyfully. But scenting
other white people too near, he backed off, and fled.

The Author's eyes followed him.

"I wonder if I'd have been equal to that, myself, if I'd been born a
nigger dog with an ingrained distrust of the white man?" he
questioned. "Gad! it comes near being the real thing, Johnson!"

The secretary looked at the slipper lying at his feet: "I wonder
where he found that, now?"

I was wondering the same thing, and so was Alicia.

"Let's show Beautiful Dog the Chinese politeness of being decent
enough not to accept his gift when he's decent enough to offer it,"
she suggested.

"Yes, throw it into the shrubbery and let him find it. That may
raise white people somewhat in his estimation," I added, hastily.

Instantly Mr. Jelnik picked it up and tossed it among the bushes.
His action seemed the merest polite compliance with my request, and
he barely glanced at the object he cast away. Yet it was really
worth a second glance. Chewed, frayed, and torn, it had once been of
finest red Morocco leather; and it was such a flat and heelless
slipper as no native Hyndsville foot had ever worn. It was The
Jinnee's slipper.

CHAPTER XIV

THE TALISMAN

Mrs. Cheshire Scarboro was far from the fool her cousin Sophronisba
had credited her with being. She had sufficient cleverness to
understand that Hyndsville wasn't big enough to hold two factions.
For a faction was forming with Hynds House as its storm-center, and
it was one which threatened Mrs. Scarboro's hitherto unquestioned
sovereignty. Jimmy Scarboro himself, a most personable youth, was
one of the ringleaders of revolt.

A weaker woman would have kept up the fight. Mrs. Scarboro
understood that to spend one's powers trying to hold an untenable
position is a proof not of valor but of stupidity. She quietly
declared a truce, sending out, in the