"I'm not given to mawkish sentiment," went on the Master shamefacedly, "but on the day your fool law for dog exterminating goes into effect there'll be a piteous crying of little children all over the whole world--of little children mourning for the gentle protecting playmates they loved. And there'll be a million men and women whose lives have all at once become lonely and empty and miserable. Isn't this war causing enough crying and loneliness and misery without your adding to it by killing our dogs? For the matter of that, haven't the army dogs over in Europe been doing enough for mankind to warrant a square deal for their stay-at-home brothers? Haven't they?" "That's a mass of sentimental bosh," declared Glure. "All of it." "It is," willingly confessed the Master. "So are most of the worth-while things in life, if you reduce them to their lowest terms." "You know what a fine group of dogs I had," said Glure, starting off on a new tack. "I had a group that cost me, dog for dog, more than any other kennel in the state. Grand dogs too. You remember my wonderful Merle, for instance, and----" "And your rare 'Prussian sheep dog'--or was it a prune-hound?--that a Chicago man sold to you for $1100," supplemented the Master, swallowing a grin. "I remember. I remember them all. What then?" "Well," resumed Glure, "no one can accuse me of not practicing what I preach. I began this splendid campaign by getting rid of every dog I owned. So I----" "Yes," agreed the Master. "I read all about that last month in your local paper. Distemper had run through your kennel, and you tried doctoring the dogs on a theory of your own instead of sending for a vet. So they all died. Tough luck! Or perhaps you got rid of them that way on purpose? For the good of the Cause? I'm sorry about the Merle. He was----" "I see there's no use talking to you," sighed Glure in disgust, ponderously rising and waddling toward his car. "I'm disappointed; because I hoped you were less bone-brained and more patriotic than these yokels round here." "I'm not," cheerily conceded the Master. "I'm not, I'm glad to say. Not a bit." "Then," pursued Glure, climbing into the car, "since you feel that way about it, I suppose there's no use asking you to come to the little cattle show I'm organizing for week after next, because that's for the Food Conservation League too. And since you're so out of sympathy with----" "I'm not out of sympathy with the League," asserted the Master. "Its card is in our kitchen window. We've signed its pledge and we're boosting it in every way we know how, except by killing our dogs; and that's no part of the League's programme, as you know very well. Tell me more about the cattle show."