“Such a sweet, lovely little dog as he was!” went on Weezy, in a tearful voice. “Just as white and good as he could be. S’pose he’s got up to heaven yet, Kirke?”
“The idea, Weezy!” Kirke’s tone was at once grieved and scornful. “Who ever heard of a fox-terrier’s going to heaven?”
“Don’t good little fox-terriers go to heaven? Nobody ever told me that before,” sighed Weezy, as Paul turned the mules toward Chinatown. “O Kirke, don’t you wish Shot had been a good little skye-terrier ’stead of a fox? He would have gone to heaven then, you know!”
“It’s no sign Shot is dead, Weezy, dear, because he just happened to lose his collar,” cried Pauline, stepping back from the wheel with a smothered laugh. “He’ll come trotting home, wagging his tail, one of these days, you’ll see!”
It was like Pauline to prophesy pleasant things. She was always hopeful, always cheerful. They called her the merriest member of The Happy Six.
“Yes, Polly, and you’ll see, too,” was Kirke’s gloomy rejoinder. “Good-by, everybody.”
“Good-by, Sobersides,” retorted Pauline, brushing her sleeves, which had rested upon the dusty tire. “Good-by, Twinny, love, I’ll be happy to meet you later in Europe, both of you.”
Kirke hardly smiled at this nonsensical farewell. He cared very little just now about Europe, or any other foreign country. He could only think of Shot’s collar found in the hedge. Somebody had hidden it there; and in his heart Kirke convicted Sing Wung.
“That collar was expensive, you know, Paul,” he broke forth, before they had reached the first corner. “He was going to sell it at one of the second-hand stores.”
“How could he have sold it? That would have given him away, Kirke. Shot’s name is on it.”