Still more interestedly did Frayne beam down on the earnest little Mackellar.
“It’s a pity you can’t go higher,” said he with elaborate nonconcern. “Especially since King here has caught your fancy. You see, I’ve got a four-month pup of King’s, back home. Out of my winning Lochinvar Lassie, at that. I sold all the other six in the litter. Sold ’em at gilt-edge prices; on account of their breeding. This little four-monther I’m speaking about—he was so much the best of the lot that I was planning to keep him. He’s the dead image of what King was at his age. He’s got ‘future champion’ written all over him. But—well, since you’ve lost your chum dog and since you know enough of collies to treat him right—well, if you were back East where you could look him over, I’d—well, I’d listen to your offer for him.”
He turned toward his kennel man as if ending the talk. Like a well-oiled phonograph, the linen dustered functionary spoke up.
“Oh, Mr. Frayne!” he blithered, ceasing to groom King’s wondrous coat and clasping both dirty hands together. “You wouldn’t ever go and sell the little ’un? Not Lochinvar Bobby, sir? Not the best pup we ever bred? Why, he’s 20 per cent. better than what King, here, was at his age. You’ll make a champion of him by the time he’s ten months old. Just like Doc Burrows did with his Queen Betty. He’s a second Howgill Rival, that pup is;—a second Sunnybank Sigurd! You sure wouldn’t go selling him? Not Bobby?”
"There’ll be other Lochinvar King pups along in a few weeks, Roke," argued Frayne conciliatingly. “And this man has just lost his only dog. If—What a pair of fools we are!” he broke off, laughing loudly. “Here we go gabbling about selling Bobby, and our friend, here, isn’t willing to go above a hundred dollars for a dog!”
The kennel man, visibly relieved, resumed operations on King with dandy-brush and cloth. But Mackellar stood looking up at Frayne as a hungry pup might plead dumbly with some human who had just taken from him his dinner bone.
“If—if he’s due to be a second Lochinvar King,” faltered Jamie, “I—I s’pose he’d be way beyond me. I’m a truck driver, you see, sir. And I’ve got a wife and a couple of kids. So I wouldn’t have any right to spend too much, just for a dog—even if I had the cash. But—gee, but it’s a chance!”
Sighing softly in renunciation, he took another long and admiring gaze at the glorious Lochinvar King; and then made as though to move away. But Lucius Frayne’s dog-loving heart evidently was touched by Jamie’s admiration for the champion and by the hinted tale of his chum dog’s death. He stopped the sadly departing Mackellar.
“Tell me more about that collie you lost,” he urged. “How’d he die? What was his breeding? Ever show him?”
Now perhaps there breathes some collie man who can resist one of those three questions about his favourite dog. Assuredly none lives who can resist all three. Mackellar, in a brace of seconds, found himself prattling eagerly to this sympathetic giant; telling of his dog’s points and wisdom and lovableness, and of the prizes he had won; and, last of all, the tale of his ending.