No longer were these parading. One at a time and then in twos, the judge was standing them on the platform. He looked at their teeth. He pressed their heads between his hands. He "hefted" their hips. He ran his fingers through their coats. He pressed his palm upward against their underbodies. He subjected them to a score of such annoyances, but he did it all with a quick and sure touch that not even the crankiest of them could resent.
Then he stepped back and studied the quartet. After that he seemed to remember Lad's presence, and, as though by way of earning his fee, he slouched across the ring to where the forlorn Mistress was petting her dear disgraced dog.
Lazily, perfunctorily, the judge ran his hand over Lad, with absolutely none of the thoroughness that had marked his inspection of the other dogs. Apparently there was no need to look for the finer points in a disqualified collie. The sketchy examination did not last three seconds. At its end the judge jotted down a number on a pad he held. Then he laid one hand heavily on Lad's head and curtly thrust out his other hand at the Mistress.
"Can I take him away now?" she asked, still stroking Lad's fur.
"Yes," rasped the judge, "and take this along with him."
In his outstretched hand fluttered a little bunch of silk—dark blue, with gold lettering on it.
The blue ribbon! First prize in the Novice class! And this grouchy little judge was awarding it—to Lad!
The Mistress looked very hard at the bit of blue and gold in her fingers. She saw it through a queer mist. Then, as she stooped to fasten it to Lad's collar, she furtively kissed the tiny white spot on the top of his head.
"It's something like the 'Bar Sinister' victory after all!" she exclaimed joyously as she rejoined the delighted Master at the ring gate. "But, oh, it was terrible for a minute or two, wasn't it?"
Now, Angus McGilead, Esq. (late of Linlithgow, Scotland), had a knowledge of collies such as is granted to few men, and this very fact made him a wretchedly bad dog-show judge; as the Kennel Club, which—on the strength of his fame—had engaged his services for this single occasion, speedily learned. The greatest lawyer makes often the worst judge. Legal annals prove this; and the same thing applies to dog-experts. They are sane rather than judicial.