The only member of this select company whose presence was really distasteful to Jan was the collie. This lady's temper was clearly very uncertain; she had a cold blue eye, and in some way she reminded Jan strongly of Grip, a fact which served to lift his hackles markedly every time he passed the bitch. The Master quickly noticed this, and did his best to keep a good wide patch of ring between them.
The six were each favored with a long and careful separate examination by the judge, upon a patch of floor space which, fortunately, was right opposite to Betty Murdoch's seat. Betty rustled her show catalogue to call Jan's attention when his turn came, and kept up direct telepathic communication with him during the whole operation. This, combined with the Master's studious care in handling—a business of which he had had considerable experience—served to keep Jan keyed up to concert-pitch while in the judge's hands.
When these individual examinations were ended, the collie and the Dandie were allowed to leave the ring. Their leaders creditably maintained the traditional air of being glad that was over, as they escorted their entries back to their respective benches; and then the judge settled down to further study of the bulldog, the Welshman, the Moor, and Jan.
Long time the judge pondered over the honest, beautifully ugly head of the bulldog, while that animal's leader did his well-meaning but quite futile best to distract attention from his charge's hind quarters. He would jam the dog well between his own legs, and with a brisk lift under the chest, endeavor to widen the dog's already splendid frontage. But, gaze as he might into Bully's wrinkled mask, the judge never for an instant lost consciousness of the weak hind quarters, the sidelong drag of the club-foot.
Very nippily the clever little Welshman went through his nimble paces, dancing to the wave of his master's handkerchief on toes as springily supple as those of any ballerina. For the admiration of the judge and his attendants, the Moorish hound performed miracles of sinuous agility. With the size of a deerhound the Moor combined the delicate graces of an Italian greyhound.
Jan offered no parlor tricks. Indeed, in these last minutes his young limbs wearied somewhat—the morning had been one of most exceptional stress and excitement for him—and while the other three were being passed in a final review, Jan lay down at full length on his belly in the ring, his muzzle outstretched upon his paws, neck slightly arched, crown high and nose very low—a pose he inherited from his distinguished mother, and in part, it may be, from his paternal grandam, old Tara, who loved to lie that way. The position was so beautiful, so characteristic, and so full of breeding that, rather to Betty's consternation, the Master refrained from disturbing it, unorthodox though such behavior might be in a judging ring. The Master nodded reassuringly to anxious Betty, and, after all, he knew even when the judge paced slowly forward, pencil in mouth, Jan was not disturbed.
"I suppose he's hardly done furnishing yet?" asked the judge.
"No, he still has, perhaps, half a year for that; four months, anyhow," replied the Master. "He is only twenty months, and weighs just on a hundred and fifty pounds."
"Does he indeed? A hundred and fifty. Now, I put him down as twenty pounds less than that."
"A tribute to his symmetry, sir," said the Master, with a smile.