similitude to an otherwise bare and
unconvincing surface of sand. Mr. Appleboy almost cried with vexation.

"Oh!" he ejaculated, struggling for words to express the full content of
his feeling. "Gosh, but you're--mean!"

He hit it! Curiously enough, that was exactly the word! Tunnygate was
mean--and his meanness was second only to that of the fat hippopotama
his wife.

Then, without knowing why, for he had no formulated ideas as to the
future, and probably only intended to try to scare Tunnygate with vague
threats, Appleboy added: "I warn you not to go through that hedge again!
Understand--I warn you! And if you do I won't be responsible for the
consequences!"

He really didn't mean a thing by the words, and Tunnygate knew it.

"Huh!" retorted the latter contemptuously. "You!"

Mr. Appleboy went inside the shack and banged the door. Mrs. Appleboy
was peeling potatoes in the kitchen-living room.

"I can't stand it!" he cried weakly. "He's driving me wild!"

"Poor lamb!" soothed Mrs. Appleboy, peeling an interminable rind. "Ain't
that just a sweetie? Look! It's most as long as your arm!"

She held it up dangling between her thumb and fore-finger. Then, with a
groan she dropped it at his feet. "I know it's a real burden to you,
deary!" she sighed.

Suddenly they both bent forward with startled eyes, hypnotized by the
peel upon the floor.

Unmistakably it spelt "dog"! They looked at one another significantly.

"It is a symbol!" breathed Mrs. Appleboy in an awed whisper.

"Whatever it is, it's some grand idea!" exclaimed her husband. "Do you
know anybody who's got one? I mean a--a--"

"I know just what you mean," she agreed. "I wonder we never thought of
it before! But there wouldn't be any use in getting any dog!"

"Oh, no!" he concurred. "We want a real--dog!"

"One you know about!" she commented.

"The fact is," said he, rubbing his forehead, "if they know about 'em
they do something to 'em. It ain't so easy to get the right kind."

"Oh, we'll get one!" she encouraged him. "Now Aunt Eliza up to Livornia
used to have one. It made a lot of trouble and they ordered her--the
selectmen did--to do away with it. But she only pretended she had--she
didn't really--and I think she's got him yet."

"Gee!" said Mr. Appleboy tensely. "What sort was it?"

"A bull!" she replied. "With a big white face."

"That's the kind!" he agreed excitedly. "What was its name?"

"Andrew," she answered.

"That's a queer nam