"You can't blame him," said the collie man philosophically. "Why, just suppose _you_ were brought to a strange place like this and chained into a cage and were left there four days and nights while hundreds of other prisoners kept screaming and shouting and crying at the top of their lungs every minute of the time! And suppose about a hundred thousand people kept jostling past your cage night and day, rubbering at you and pointing at you and trying to feel your ears and mouth, and chirping at you to shake hands, would _you_ feel very hungry or very chipper? A four-day show is the most fearful thing a high-strung dog can go through--next to vivisection. A little one-day show, for about eight hours, is no special ordeal, especially if the dog's Master stays near him all the time; but a four-day show is--is Sheol! I wonder the S. P. C. A. doesn't do something to make it easier." "If I'd known--if we'd known----" began the Mistress. "Most of these folks know!" returned the collie man. "They do it year after year. There's a mighty strong lure in a bit of ribbon. Why, look what an exhibitor will do for it! He'll risk his dog's health and make his dog's life a horror. He'll ship him a thousand miles in a tight crate from Show to Show. (Some dogs die under the strain of so many journeys.) And he'll pay five dollars for every class the dog's entered in. Some exhibitors enter a single dog in five or six classes. The Association charges one dollar admission to the show. Crowds of people pay the price to come in. The exhibitor gets none of the gate-money. All he gets for his five dollars or his twenty-five dollars is an off chance at a measly scrap of colored silk worth maybe four cents. That, and the same off-chance at a tiny cash prize that doesn't come anywhere near to paying his expenses. Yet, for all, it's the straightest sport on earth. Not an atom of graft in it, and seldom any profit.... So long! I wish you folks luck with 658." He strolled on. The Mistress was winking very fast and was bending over Lad, petting him and whispering to him. The Master looked in curiosity at a kennel man who was holding down a nearby collie while a second man was trimming the scared dog's feet and fetlocks with a pair of curved shears; and now the Master noted that nearly every dog but Lad was thus clipped as to ankle. At an adjoining cell a woman was sifting almost a pound of talcum powder into her dog's fur to make the coat fluffier. Elsewhere similar weird preparations were in progress. And Lad's only preparation had been baths and brushing! The Master began to feel like a fool. People all along the collie line presently began to brush dogs (smoothing the fur the wrong way to fluff it) and to put other finishing touches on the poor beasts' make-up. The collie man strolled back to 658. "The Novice class in collies is going to be called presently," he told the Mistress. "Where's your exhibition-leash and choke-collar? I'll help you put them on."