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Page 36
Jan offered no parlor tricks. Indeed, in these last minutes his young
limbs wearied somewhat--the morning had been one of most exceptional
stress and excitement for him--and while the other three were being
passed in a final review, Jan lay down at full length on his belly in
the ring, his muzzle outstretched upon his paws, neck slightly arched,
crown high and nose very low--a pose he inherited from his distinguished
mother, and in part, it may be, from his paternal grandam, old Tara, who
loved to lie that way. The position was so beautiful, so characteristic,
and so full of breeding that, rather to Betty's consternation, the
Master refrained from disturbing it, unorthodox though such behavior
might be in a judging ring. The Master nodded reassuringly to anxious
Betty, and, after all, he knew even when the judge paced slowly forward,
pencil in mouth, Jan was not disturbed.
"I suppose he's hardly done furnishing yet?" asked the judge.
"No, he still has, perhaps, half a year for that; four months, anyhow,"
replied the Master. "He is only twenty months, and weighs just on a
hundred and fifty pounds."
"Does he indeed? A hundred and fifty. Now, I put him down as twenty
pounds less than that."
"A tribute to his symmetry, sir," said the Master, with a smile.
"Ye--es, to be sure. May I see him on the scale?"
So Jan was carefully weighed by the judge himself, and scaled one
hundred and forty-eight and one-half pounds. And then he was carefully
measured for height--at the shoulder-bone--and touched the standard at a
fraction over thirty-two and one-half inches.
"Re--markable," said the judge; "especially in the weight. He certainly
is finely proportioned. Would you mind just running him across the ring
as quickly as you can?"
The owners of the other three dogs wore during this time an expression
of inhuman selflessness of superhumanly kind interest in Jan and his
doings.
"It's a thousand pities he's so very coarse," murmured one disinterested
admirer, the owner of the Welsh terrier. A moment later the Master had
to hide a smile as he heard the owner of the bulldog whisper: "Nice
beast. Pity he's so weedy. A little less on the fine side and one could
back him as a winner."
To run well while on the lead is an accomplishment rare among large
dogs, and one which demands careful training. So the Master took
chances. He signaled Betty to call Jan to her, and then loosed Jan's
lead. This was a signal of delight for Jan. He was tired of the judging
now and thought this ended it. Not only did he canter very springily
across the ring, but he cleared the four-foot barricade as though it had
not been there and greeted Betty with effusion. A moment later, at her
urgent behest, and in response to the Master's call, he returned as
easily to the ring. Then the judge, thoughtfully tapping his note-book
with his pencil, bowed to the exhibitors, and said:
"Thank you, gentlemen; I think that will do."
The order of the awards was:
No. 214 1
No. 23 2
No. 97 3
No. 116 H.C.
which meant that the Welshman was highly commended--and deserved it--the
Moor took third prize, the bulldog second prize, and Jan, the son of
Finn and Desdemona, first prize. And so, in the only show-ring test to
which he had been submitted, Jan did every credit to both the noble
strains represented in his ancestry. Finn was never beaten. The Lady
Desdemona had never lowered her flag to any bloodhound. Jan had passed
his first test at the head of the list, among twenty-seven competitors,
and despite his judge's special predilection for terriers and bulldogs.
"Wouldn't Dick Vaughan have been proud of him!" said the Master. And
when Betty nodded her excited assent, he added: "I'll tell you what,
we'll send him a cable."
And so it was that, a few hours later, a trooper in the Regina Barracks
of the R.N.W.M. Police, five thousand miles away, read, with keen
delight, this message:
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