In the centre of the ring, accompanied by a busy steward with a sheaf of notes in his hand, stood the Judge of Irish Wolfhounds; a man grown grey, white-haired indeed, in the study of dog-folk, and one of whom it might be said that, by his own single-hearted efforts, he had saved the breed of Irish Wolfhounds from becoming extinct in the middle of last century, and accomplished a great deal of the spade work which has brought the modern breed to its present flourishing state. No man living could claim to know more of Irish Wolfhounds than this white-haired Judge, who stood in the centre of a ring formed by all the greatest aristocrats of the historic breed. "Move them round, please," he said quietly. "Keep them moving as freely as possible." Finn was the only hound in that ring under two and a half years of age, and Finn was just fifteen months old, a child among the acknowledged leaders and chieftains of his race. One noticed it in the comparative angularity and leggyness of his build. He carried less flesh than the others, was far less set; in a word, they had "furnished," and Finn had not. The Mistress of the Kennels, from her place beside the ring, noticed these things, and sighed for the soaring ambition which had led to the entering of this tyro in Open class. "Finn, boy!" said she, in an impressive, long-drawn whisper, as Finn passed her place. The youngster's ears lifted, and his fine neck curved superbly as he looked round at the Mistress. And just then the Master bent over him, whispering close beside his ear certain nonsense words which were associated in Finn's mind with certain events, like rabbit-hunting and racing on the Downs. "Chu, chu, chu--u--u--, Finn!" whispered the Master. And that was a nonsense word connected with two things only: the unexpected rising of a rabbit ahead, and the new game in which Finn had been led round a ring with Tara and Kathleen in the orchard at home. And, to be sure, there was the Mistress of the Kennels looking on all the time, and Finn and the Master walking round, and other dogs, and----