"No," agreed the Boy, dully, "I suppose not." He went into the dining-room, surreptitiously helped himself to a handful of lump-sugar and passed on out to the veranda. Wolf was sprawled half-asleep on the driveway lawn in the sun. The dog's wolflike brush began to thump against the shaven grass. Then, as the Boy stood on the veranda edge and snapped his fingers, Wolf got up from his soft resting-place and started toward him, treading mincingly and with a sort of swagger, his slanting eyes half shut, his mouth a-grin. "You know I've got sugar in my pocket as well as if you saw it," said the Boy. "Stop where you are." Though the Boy accompanied his order with no gesture nor change of tone, the dog stopped dead short ten feet away. "Sugar is bad for dogs," went on the Boy. "It does things to their teeth and their digestions. Didn't anybody ever tell you that, Wolfie?" The young dog's grin grew wider. His slanting eyes closed to mere glittering slits. He fidgeted a little, his tail wagging fast. "But I guess a dog's got to have _some_ kind of consolation purse when he can't go to a show," resumed the Boy. "Catch!" As he spoke he suddenly drew a lump of sugar from his pocket and, with the same motion, tossed it in the direction of Wolf. Swift as was the Boy's action, Wolf's eye was still quicker. Springing high in air, the dog caught the flung cube of sugar as it flew above him and to one side. A second and a third lump were caught as deftly as the first. Then the Boy took from his pocket the fourth and last lump. Descending the steps, he put his left hand across Wolf's eyes. With his right he flipped the lump of sugar into a clump of shrubbery. "Find it!" he commanded, lifting the blindfold from the eyes of his pet. Wolf darted hither and thither, stopped once or twice to sniff, then began to circle the nearer stretch of lawn, nose to ground. In less than two minutes he merged from the shrubbery placidly crunching the sugar-lump between his mighty jaws. "And yet they say you aren't fit to be shown!" exclaimed the Boy, fondling the dog's ears. "Gee, but I'd give two years' growth if you could have a cup! You deserve one, all right; if only those judges had sense enough to study a collie's brain as well as the outside of his head!" Wolf ran his nose into the cupped palm and whined. From the tone underlying the words, he knew the Boy was unhappy, and he wanted to be of help. The Boy went into the house again to find his parents sitting down to lunch. Gathering his courage in both hands, he asked: "Is there going to be a Novice Class for collies at Ridgewood, Dad?" "Why, yes," said the Master, "I suppose so. There always is." "Do--do they give cups for the Novice Class?" inquired the Boy, with studied carelessness.