With almost a gesture of regret McGilead laid his hand athwart Coldstream Guard's head. The Mistress read the verdict, and she accepted it. "Come, Laddie, dear," she said tenderly. "You're second, anyway, Reserve-Winner. That's _something_." "Wait!" snapped McGilead. The judge was seizing one of Champion Coldstream Guard's supershapely ears and turning it backward. His sensitive fingers, falling on the dog's head in token of victory, had encountered an odd stiffness in the curve of the ear. Now he began to examine that ear, and then the other, and thereby he disclosed a most clever bit of surgical bandaging. Neatly crisscrossed, inside each of the Champion's ears, was a succession of adhesive-plaster strips cut thin and running from tip to orifice. The scientific applying of these strips had painfully imparted to the prick-ears (the dog's one flaw) the perfect tulip-shape so desirable as a show-quality. Champion Coldstream Guard's silken ears could not have had other than ideal shape and posture if he had wanted them to--while that crisscross of sticky strips held them in position! Now, this was no new trick--the ruse that the Champion's handlers had employed. Again and again in bench-shows, it had been employed upon bull-terriers. A year or two ago a woman was ordered from the ring, at the Garden, when plaster was found inside her terrier's ears, but seldom before had it been detected in a collie--in which a prick-ear usually counts as a fatal blemish. McGilead looked at the Champion. Long and searchingly he looked at the man who held the Champion's leash--and who fidgeted grinningly under the judge's glare. Then McGilead laid both hands on Lad's great honest head--almost as in benediction. "Your dog wins, Madam," he said, "and while it is no part of a judge's duty to say so, I am heartily glad. I won't insult you by asking if he is for sale, but if ever you have to part with him----" He did not finish, but abruptly gave the Mistress the "Winning Class" rosette. And now, as Lad left the ring, hundreds of hands were put out to pat him. All at once he was a celebrity. Without returning the dog to the bench, the Mistress went directly to the collie man. "When do they present the cups?" she asked. "Not until Saturday night, I believe," said the man. "I congratulate you both on----" "In order to win his cup, Lad will have to stay in this--this inferno--for three days and nights longer?" "Of course. All the dogs----" "If he doesn't stay, he won't get the cup?" "No. It would go to the Reserve, I suppose, or to----" "Good!" declared the Mistress in relief. "Then he won't be defrauding anyone, and they can't rob him of his two ribbons because I have those." "What do you mean?" asked the puzzled collie man. But the Master understood--and approved. "Good!" he said. "I wanted all day to suggest it to you, but I didn't have the nerve. Come around to the Exhibitors' Entrance. I'll go ahead and start the car."