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Page 6
The kennel-man laughed noisily. Then he checked his mirth, for
professional reasons, as he remembered the nature of the boy's
quest and foresaw a bare possibility of getting rid of the
unwelcome Lass.
"Nope," he said. "This isn't Chief. If it was, I guess your Uncle
Dick's check would have to have four figures in it before you
could make a deal. But this is one of Chief's daughters. This is
Rothsay Lass. A grand little girl, ain't she? Say,"--in a
confidential whisper,--"since you've took a fancy for her, maybe
I could coax the old man into lettin' you have her at an easy
price. He was plannin' to sell her for a hundred or so. But he
goes pretty much by what I say. He might let her go for--How much
of a check did you say your uncle sent you?"
"Twelve dollars," answered the boy,--"one for each year. Because
I'm named for him. It's my birthday, you know. But--but a dollar
of it went for the chain and the collar. How much do you suppose
the gentleman would want for Rothsay Lass?"
The kennel-man considered for a moment. Then he went back to the
house, leaving the lad alone at the gate of the run. Eleven
dollars, for a high-pedigreed collie pup, was a joke price. But
no one else wanted Lass, and her feed was costing more every day.
According to Rothsay standards, the list of brood-females was
already complete. Even as a gift, the kennels would be making
money by getting rid of the prick-eared "second." Wherefore he
went to consult with the foreman.
Left alone with Lass, the boy opened the gate and went into the
run. A little to his surprise Lass neither shrank from him nor
attacked him. She danced about his legs in delight, varying this
by jumping up and trying to lick his excited face. Then she
thrust her cold nose into the cup of his hand as a plea to be
petted.
When the kennel-man came back, the boy was sitting on the dusty
ground of the run, and Lass was curled up rapturously in his lap,
learning how to shake hands at his order.
"You can have her, the boss says," vouchsafed the kennel-man.
"Where's the eleven dollars?"
By this graceless speech Dick Hazen received the key to the
Seventh Paradise, and a life-membership in the world-wide Order
of Dog-Lovers.
The homeward walk, for Lass and her new master, was no walk at
all, but a form of spiritual levitation. The half-mile pilgrimage
consumed a full hour of time. Not that Lass hung back or rebelled
at her first taste of collar and chain! These petty annoyances
went unfelt in the wild joy of a real walk, and in the infinitely
deeper happiness of knowing her friendship-famine was appeased at
last.
The walk was long for various reasons--partly because, in her
frisking gyrations, Lass was forever tangling the new chain
around Dick's thin ankles; partly because he stopped, every block
or so, to pat her or to give her further lessons in the art of
shaking hands. Also there were admiring boy-acquaintances along
the way, to whom the wonderful pet must be exhibited.
At last Dick turned in at the gate of a cheap bungalow on a cheap
street--a bungalow with a discouraged geranium plot in its
pocket-handkerchief front yard, and with a double line of drying
clothes in the no larger space behind the house.
As Dick and his chum rounded the house, a woman emerged from
between the two lines of flapping sheets, whose hanging she had
been superintending. She stopped at sight of her son and the dog.
"Oh!" she commented with no enthusiasm at all. "Well, you did it,
hey? I was hoping you'd have better sense, and spend your check
on a nice new suit or something. He's kind of pretty, though,"
she went on, the puppy's friendliness and beauty wringing the
word of grudging praise from her. "What kind of a dog is he? And
you're sure he isn't savage, aren't you?"
"Collie," answered Dick proudly. "Pedigreed collie! You bet she
isn't savage, either. Why, she's an angel. She minds me already.
See--shake hands, Lass!" "Lass!" ejaculated Mrs. Hazen. "'SHE!'
Dick, you don't mean to tell me you've gone and bought yourself
a--a FEMALE dog?"
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