"Oh, then the mistress took her up to the house. She often does. She is clean daffy over that dog. Give yourself no concern, sonny; the pup is with the master and missis, being shown off to company, most likely."
"Probably she is. So you and the men have been here all the afternoon?"
"That we have. A hot job, the cutting of this hedge."
"It looks fine," declared Walter, turning away.
"It ought to," Tim growled. "Goodness knows it's trouble enough! A privet hedge is the devil to keep even."
Walter, however, did not wait to hear the virtues and vices of privet hedges discussed. He was in too much of a hurry. Furthermore, he had secured the information which he had come to seek. Tim and his host knew nothing of the whereabouts of Lola. Nothing else mattered. In fact, bewildered, anxious, and excited, it seemed at the moment as if nothing else would ever matter again. He must find that dog—he must!
Nevertheless he remembered he must not appear agitated and therefore, instead of racing across the lawn and shouting for Jerry as would have been his inclination, he walked decorously along the path until he came to the boathouse from which door Jerry was at that instant issuing.
"You haven't seen Lola, have you, Jerry?" he asked as indifferently as he could.
"Lola? No. Why?"
"It—it is just her dinner time," stammered the lad, "and I wanted to find her."