le sacrifice, and if the same
end could be served without losing Finn, why that was blithe news.
He was not sure of his intention to keep either of the bitch pups,
and in any case he would not have thought of keeping both of them.
But honesty and real gratitude made him, impelled him, to point out
to the visitor that she might never again have the opportunity of
obtaining the kind of hound that Finn would make. However, she
stuck to her preference for a daughter, and so it was decided.
Three days afterwards a large dog-box on little wheels, with grated
windows and a properly ventilated roof, arrived from Yorkshire, and
was placed outside the back-kitchen door. After a very light
breakfast next morning--it is bad for whelps, or grown dogs either,
to have a full meal before a journey, because the stress and
excitements of railway travelling, which are at least as great for
a dog as those of air-ship travelling would be for a man, arrest
the process of digestion--the fawn bitch puppy was coaxed into this
box, while Tara looked on with a good deal of interest; and that
was the last she saw of the cottage by the Downs. When the fawn
whelp left that travelling-box again, some nine hours later, she
was in the paved stable courtyard of a great house in Yorkshire.

A week later another visitor came, this time from Somerset, and his
choice fell upon a fawn dog, after half an hour spent in trying to
tempt the Master to part with Finn. When this visitor, who was a
famous breeder of Irish Wolfhounds, was leaving, with the fawn dog
whelp in a travelling hamper, he said--

"But, really, I think you are mistaken, you know, about the grey
whelp. He's a beauty, of course, or I shouldn't want him; but I
fancy you made a mistake not to accept that offer. Fifty guineas is
a longish figure for a three months' pup, with distemper to face
and all that. I'm not sure that I wasn't over rash to make such an
offer."

The Master laughed. "Well," he said, "be thankful that there's no
likelihood of my taking advantage of your rashness. As for
distemper, we don't deal in it at all; don't believe in it. If pups
are consistently nourished, and get no chills and no damp and no
infection, there's no earthly reason why they should ever have
distemper. At least, that's how we've found it."

So the fawn dog whelp went, and Finn stayed with the grey bitch
pup, and Tara's family was thus reduced to two. The Master said
that as he had sold only one puppy