All around the central space were alleys, on each side of which were lines of raised "benches," two feet from the ground. The benches were carpeted with straw and were divided off by high wire partitions into compartments about three feet in area. Each compartment was to be the abiding-place of some unfortunate dog for the next four days and nights. By short chains the dogs were bound into these open-fronted cells. The chains left their wearers just leeway enough to stand up or lie down or to move to the various limits of the tiny space. In front of some of the compartments a wire barrier was fastened. This meant that the occupant was savage--in other words, that under the four-day strain he was likely to resent the stares or pokes or ticklings or promiscuous alien pattings of fifty thousand curious visitors. The Master came back with a plumply tipped attendant. Lad was conducted through a babel of yapping and snapping thoroughbreds of all breeds, to a section at the Garden's northeast corner, above which, in large black letters on a white sign, was inscribed "COLLIES." Here his conductors stopped before a compartment numbered "658." "Up, Laddie!" said the Mistress, touching the straw-carpeted bench. Usually, at this command, Lad was wont to spring to the indicated height--whether car-floor or table-top--with the lightness of a cat. Now, one foot after another, he very slowly climbed into the compartment he was already beginning to detest--the cell which was planned to be his only resting-spot for four interminable days. There he, who had never been tied, was ignominiously chained as though he were a runaway puppy. The insult bit to the depths of his sore soul. He curled down in the straw. The Mistress made him as comfortable as she could. She set before him the breakfast she had brought and told the attendant to bring him some water. The Master, meantime, had met a collie man whom he knew, and in company with this acquaintance he was walking along the collie-section examining the dogs tied there. A dozen times had the Master visited dog-shows; but now that Lad was on exhibition, he studied the other collies with new eyes. "Look!" he said boastfully to his companion, pausing before a bench whereon were chained a half-dozen dogs from a single illustrious kennel. "These fellows aren't in it with old Lad. See--their noses are tapered like tooth-picks, and the span of their heads, between the ears, isn't as wide as my palm; and their eyes are little and they slant like a Chinaman's; and their bodies are as curved as a grayhound's. Compared with Lad, some of them are freaks. That's all they are, just freaks--not all of them, of course, but a lot of them."