The Boy Scout and Other Stories for Boys

by Richard Harding Davis

The judge he doesn’t hesitate a moment. He just waves his hand toward the corner of the ring. “Take him away,” he says to the Master, “over there, and keep him away”; and he turns and looks most solemn at the six beautiful bull-terriers. I don’t know how I crawled to that corner. I wanted to scratch under the sawdust and dig myself a grave. The kennel-men they slapped the rail with their hands and laughed at the Master like they would fall over. They pointed at me in the corner, and their sides just shaked. But little Miss Dorothy she presses her lips tight against the rail, and I see tears rolling from her eyes. The Master he hangs his head like he had been whipped. I felt most sorry for him than all. He was so red, and he was letting on not to see the kennel-men, and blinking his eyes. If the judge had ordered me right out it wouldn’t have disgraced us so, but it was keeping me there while he was judging the high-bred dogs that hurt so hard. With all those people staring, too. And his doing it so quick, without no doubt nor questions. You can’t fool the judges. They see inside you.

But he couldn’t make up his mind about them high-bred dogs. He scowls at ’em, and he glares at ’em, first with his head on the one side and then on the other. And he feels of ’em, and orders ’em to run about. And Nolan leans against the rails, with his head hung down, and pats me. And Miss Dorothy comes over beside him, but don’t say nothing, only wipes her eye with her finger. A man on the other side of the rail he says to the Master, “The judge don’t like your dog?”

“No,” says the Master.

“Have you ever shown him before?” says the man.

“No,” says the Master, “and I’ll never show him again. He’s my dog,” says the Master, “and he suits me! And I don’t care what no judges think.” And when he says them kind words, I licks his hand most grateful.

The judge had two of the six dogs on a little platform in the middle of the ring, and he had chased the four other dogs into the corners, where they was licking their chops, and letting on they didn’t care, same as Nolan was.

The two dogs on the platform was so beautiful that the judge hisself couldn’t tell which was the best of ’em, even when he stoops down and holds their heads together. But at last he gives a sigh, and brushes the sawdust off his knees, and goes to the table in the ring, where there was a man keeping score, and heaps and heaps of blue and gold and red and yellow ribbons. And the judge picks up a bunch of ’em and walks to the two gentlemen who was holding the beautiful dogs, and he says to each, “What’s his number?” and he hands each gentleman a ribbon. And then he turned sharp and comes straight at the Master.

“What’s his number?” says the judge. And Master was so scared that he couldn’t make no answer.

But Miss Dorothy claps her hands and cries out like she was laughing, “Three twenty-six,” and the judge writes it down and shoves Master the blue ribbon.

I bit the Master, and I jumps and bit Miss Dorothy, and I waggled so hard that the Master couldn’t hold me. When I get to the gate Miss Dorothy snatches me up and kisses me between the ears, right before millions of people, and they both hold me so tight that I didn’t know which of them was carrying of me. But one thing I knew, for I listened hard, as it was the judge hisself as said it.