“Mal, did I ever tell you about a fellow I knew back home who had a cocker spaniel?” asked Rob.
“No, I don’t think so. What about him?”
“Well, it was a fine dog and he wanted to enter him at the dog show.” Rob pushed his tin plate aside and stretched himself comfortably. “But when he had the dog weighed he was eight pounds too heavy. The show was to open the next morning and he didn’t know what to do. He tried starving the dog and in the evening he weighed him again, but he was still seven and a half pounds too heavy.”
“This is a pathetic tale,” muttered Malcolm.
“Well, he didn’t know what to do—”
“You said that before, Rob.”
“But he had an idea. He remembered that once he had seen a chap wrapped up in sweaters running along the road getting his weight down. So this chap, whose name was—”
“Smith,” suggested Evan.
“Shut up. His name was Jones. So Jones decided that if that would work with a man it ought to work with a dog. So after dinner he wrapped the dog—”
“What was the dog’s name?” asked Jelly.