There, the sylvan stillness was shattered by barks in every key, from Pekingese falsetto to St. Bernard bass-thunder. An open stretch of shaded sward—backed by a stable that looked more like a dissolute cathedral—had been given over to ten double rows of "benches," for the anchorage of the Show's three hundred exhibits. Above the central show-ring a banner was strung between two tree tops. It bore a blazing red cross at either end. In its center was the legend:
"WELCOME TO GLURE TOWERS!"
The Wall Street Farmer, as I have hinted, was a man of much taste—of a sort.
Lad had enjoyed the ten-mile spin through the cool morning air, in the tonneau of The Place's only car—albeit the course of baths and combings of the past week had long since made him morbidly aware that a detested dog show was somewhere at hand. Now, even before the car entered the fearsome feudal gateway of Glure Towers, the collie's ears and nose told him the hour of ordeal was at hand.
His zest in the ride vanished. He looked reproachfully at the Mistress and tried to bury his head under her circling arm. Lad loathed dog shows; as does every dog of high-strung nerves and higher intelligence. The Mistress, after one experience, had refrained from breaking his heart by taking him to those horrors known as "two-or-more-day Shows." But, as she herself took such childish delight in the local one-day contests, she had schooled herself to believe Lad must enjoy them, too.
Lad, as a matter of fact, preferred these milder ordeals, merely as a man might prefer one day of jail or toothache to two or more days of the same misery. But—even as he knew many lesser things—he knew the adored Mistress and Master reveled in such atrocities as dog shows; and that he, for some reason, was part of his two gods' pleasure in them. Therefore, he made the best of the nuisance. Which led his owners to a certainty that he had grown to like it.
Parking the car, the Mistress and Master led the unhappy dog to the clerk's desk; received his number tag and card, and were shown where to bench him. They made Lad as nearly comfortable as possible, on a straw-littered raised stall; between a supercilious Merle and a fluffily disconsolate sable-and-white six-month puppy that howled ceaselessly in an agony of fright.
The Master paused for a moment in his quest of water for Lad, and stared open-mouthed at the Merle.
"Good Lord!" he mumbled, touching the Mistress' arm and pointing to the gray dog. "That's the most magnificent collie I ever set eyes on. It's farewell to poor old Laddie's hopes, if he is in any of the same classes with that marvel. Say goodby, right now, to your hopes of the Gold Cup; and to 'Winners' in the regular collie division."
"I won't say goodby to it," refused the Mistress. "I won't do anything of the sort. Lad's every bit as beautiful as that dog. Every single bit."