“Buck up!” exhorted Gladden, who had caught not a distinct word of the mumbled soliloquy but who saw the old man’s first glow of relief was beginning to merge with his chronic gloom. “Buck up, brother. Jail’s better than a lot of dogshows I’ve covered. It’s a funny thing! I’ve covered every line of sport from cockfighting to horse-racing. And I’ve found more bad feeling and less true sportsmanship in the dog game than in all the rest put together. More slams and knocks and poor losers and petty meanness than in every other form of sport, combined.”
Fenno continued to fidget, unheeding. Less to distract the oldster from his worries than to air his own views, the reporter went on:
“I’ve figured it out. I mean the reason for the dog-game’s unsportsmanliness. And I think I’ve hit on the answer. It’s because there are so many women in it.”
He paused, waiting for the exclamation which usually followed this pet speech of his. Fenno was deaf to the harangue. Undeterred, Gladden resumed:
“My wife says I’m a crank for thinking that. But it’s true. In the old days we men were out fighting or fishing or hunting or doing other stunts that call for sportsmanship. The women were at home taking care of the house and the kids. During the centuries, men learned to be sportsmen. They learned to lose gracefully and to win modestly. They had to. They had thousands of years start on women in mastering sportsmanship. It wasn’t till a very few years ago that women at large took any part at all in sport. They had to learn it from the beginning. Or rather, they still have to. Most of them haven’t made much of a start at it yet.”
“Uh-huh,” grunted the unhearing Fenno.
“Women don’t take a general part in any forms of sport, even yet,” pursued the reporter, “except dogshowing and tennis. At least those are almost the only sports they’ve achieved any prominence in. And look at the result! The dog game is full of squabbles and backbiting and poor sportsmanship. But for the A. K. C.’s wise guidance it would have gone to pot, long ago. As for women in tennis—well, maybe you’ve read of the Mallory-Lenglen mixups and others of the same sort. There couldn’t be anything like that, on the same scale, in baseball or pugilism or boating. Only in tennis. Because women are prominent in it. And in dog-breeding-and-showing. Not that I’m knocking women. It isn’t their fault. Sportsmanship is a thing that takes hundreds of years to acquire. They’ve been at it for less than a quarter-century. At that, they do fifty times better at it than any man could hope to, in some purely feminine art he was just learning. And many of them are clean sportsmen—these women. Better than most men. But some few of them—”
“Say!” exploded Joel. “You tol’ me that armory wa’n’t but two miles away. We been ridin’ in this open hearse for a—”
“We’ll be there in a minute now,” said Gladden, swallowing the rest of his oration. “It’s just around that corner. Don’t worry about your dog. He’s all right. You won’t even miss the collie judging. It won’t begin for another half-hour. Plenty of time to— Here we are!” he finished, as the car swung a corner and stopped in front of the armory.
Joel scarce waited for the machine to halt; before scrambling out and making his way, at a run, up the steps and into the rackety building. Gladden followed as fast as he could; amusedly interested in the prospect of watching the grouchy old man when he should rejoin his belovèd dog.