"Oh Lad! Laddie! I'm so sorry. So sorry! You're--you're more of a man than I am, old friend. I'll make it up to you, somehow!" And now besides the loved hand, there was another touch, even more precious--a warmly caressing little pink tongue that licked his bleeding foreleg. Lady--timidly, adoringly--was trying to stanch her hero's wounds. "Lady, I apologize to you too," went on the foolish Master. "I'm sorry, girl." Lady was too busy soothing the hurts of her newly discovered mate to understand. But Lad understood. Lad always understood. CHAPTER II "QUIET" To Lad the real world was bounded by The Place. Outside, there were a certain number of miles of land and there were an uncertain number of people. But the miles were uninspiring, except for a cross-country tramp with the Master. And the people were foolish and strange folk who either stared at him--which always annoyed Lad--or else tried to pat him; which he hated. But The Place was--The Place. Always, he had lived on The Place. He felt he owned it. It was assuredly his to enjoy, to guard, to patrol from high road to lake. It was his world. The denizens of every world must have at least one deity to worship. Lad had one: the Master. Indeed, he had two: the Master and the Mistress. And because the dog was strong of soul and chivalric, withal, and because the Mistress was altogether lovable, Lad placed her altar even above the Master's. Which was wholly as it should have been. There were other people at The Place--people to whom a dog must be courteous, as becomes a thoroughbred, and whose caresses he must accept. Very often, there were guests, too. And from puppyhood, Lad had been taught the sacredness of the Guest Law. Civilly, he would endure the pettings of these visiting outlanders. Gravely, he would shake hands with them, on request. He would even permit them to paw him or haul him about, if they were of the obnoxious, dog-mauling breed. But the moment politeness would permit, he always withdrew, very quietly, from their reach and, if possible, from their sight as well. Of all the dogs on The Place, big Lad alone had free run of the house, by day and by night. He slept in a "cave" under the piano. He even had access to the sacred dining-room, at mealtimes--where always he lay to the left of the Master's chair. With the Master, he would willingly unbend for a romp at any or all times. At the Mistress' behest he would play with all the silly abandon of a puppy; rolling on the ground at her feet, making as though to seize and crush one of her little shoes in his mighty jaws; wriggling and waving his legs in air when she buried her hand in the masses of his chest-ruff; and otherwise comporting himself with complete loss of dignity. But to all except these two, he was calmly unapproachable. From his earliest days he had never forgotten he was an aristocrat among inferiors. And, calmly aloof, he moved among his subjects.