"Good!" he said. "I wanted all day to suggest it to you, but I didn't have the nerve. Come around to the Exhibitors' Entrance. I'll go ahead and start the car."
"But what's the idea?" queried the collie man in bewilderment.
"The idea," replied the Mistress, "is that the cup can go to any dog that wants it. Lad's coming home. He knows it, too. Just look at him. I promised him he should go home. We can get there by dinner-time, and he has a day's fast to make up for."
"But," expostulated the scandalized collie man, "if you withdraw your dog like that, the Association will never allow you to exhibit him at its shows again."
"The Association can have a pretty silver cup," retorted the Mistress, "to console it for losing Lad. As for exhibiting him again—well, I wouldn't lose these two ribbons for a hundred dollars, but I wouldn't put my worst enemy's dog to the torture of winning them over again—for a thousand. Come along, Lad, we're going back home."
At the talisman-word, Lad broke silence for the first time in all that vilely wretched day. He broke it with a series of thunderously trumpeting barks that quite put to shame the puny noise-making efforts of every other dog in the show.
CHAPTER VI
LOST!
Four of us were discussing abstract themes, idly, as men will, after a good dinner and in front of a country-house fire. Someone asked: