Dick leaped to his feet. "Hey!" he cried. "There's some'pm doin' in the liv'ry barn! I'm goin' up and see the fun!"
He started forthwith, the others trailing after him. Far in the rear came Sube, humiliated and indignant at what had happened, and apprehensive about what would happen when he reached home. The liniment episode was still strong in his memory; and to become involved in another affair of bad odor so soon afterwards seemed to him like trifling with Providence. Sube clambered slowly up the bank and walked into the livery barn. It was as Dick Bissell had suspected. Something was doing. An undersized bay mare was receiving her spring haircut.
Sube's brother Sim would have recognized at a glance that it was Fretful Mollie; for he knew every horse in town by its first name, and most of the horses knew Sim. But Sube was no horseman. He could tell the difference between a horse and an automobile; he could probably have picked a horse from a herd of cows ninety-nine times out of a hundred. But he was no lover of horseflesh.
As he stood watching Mollie tremble and plunge whenever the clippers touched a ticklish spot, he became conscious of a movement at the door of the barn, and glancing around he beheld Sport. Sube was astonished, for he had supposed that the dog was safe at home. But Sport had been following him all the afternoon; never very far behind, and for obvious reasons never very conspicuous.
When Sport perceived that his presence had been detected he tried to make the best of a bad situation. He pretended that their meeting was the merest sort of coincidence; that he had come there strictly on business of his own, but was none the less glad to see his master. However, human like, Sube misunderstood all this; and pointing an automatic finger at the dog, muttered:
"Didn't I tell you to go home?"
Sport fled. And as he went scurrying down the alley he was kept busy dodging several sticks, a tin can, and one or two old shoes.
