It--that is, the case of _Crewdson v. The Great Southern Railway Company_--was about a dog, consigned according to the plaintiff's--which was Arthur's--contention (the real movements of the animal were wrapped in doubt from the outset) by a certain Startin--who was at that date butler to the plaintiff, but under notice to leave, and who did a few days later vanish into space--to his mistress, Miss Crewdson, an elderly lady of considerable means and of indomitable temper--from Tenterden in Sussex to its owner at Harrogate, where she was taking the waters. Though a very small dog, it was a very precious one, both from a sentimental and from a pecuniary point of view. So it ought to have been, considering the questions of law and fact which it raised! For in reply to Miss Crewdson's simple, but determined and reiterated, demand for her dog or her damages, the Company made answer, first, that they had never received the dog at Tenterden, secondly that they had duly delivered the dog at Harrogate, and lastly--but it was a "lastly" pregnant with endless argument--that they had done all they were bound to do in regard to the dog, whatever had in truth happened or not happened to the animal. What actually had, nobody ever knew for certain. A dog--some dog--got to Harrogate in the end. The Company said this was Miss Crewdson's dog, if they had ever carried a dog of hers at all; Miss Crewdson indignantly repudiated it. And there, in the end, the question of fact rested--for ever unsolved. The House of Lords--though the Lord Chancellor, basing himself on a comparison of photographs, did indulge in an _obiter dictum_ that the Harrogate dog, if it were not the Tenterden dog, was as like as two peas to it ("Of course it was--both Pekinese! But it wasn't our dog," Arthur muttered indignantly)--found it unnecessary to decide this question, in view of the fact that, Startin having disappeared into space, there was no sufficient evidence to justify a jury in finding that the Company had ever received any dog of Miss Crewdson's. It was this little point of the eternally doubtful identity of the Harrogate dog which proved such a godsend to the wits of the Press; they suggested that the Highest Tribunal in the Land might have taken its courage in both hands and given, at all events for what it was worth, its opinion about the Harrogate dog. Was he Hsien-Feng, or wasn't he? But no. The House of Lords said it was unnecessary to decide that. It was certainly extremely difficult, and had given two juries an immensity of trouble. All these remarkable developments, all these delightful ramifications, now lay within the ambit of the red tape which Arthur, left alone, feverishly untied. He had to be at it; he could not wait. Not only was there the conference at four-fifteen, but he was all of an itch to know what he was in for and what he might hope for, divided between a craven fear of difficulty above his powers and a soaring hope of opportunity beyond his dreams.