"But what's the idea?" queried the collie man in bewilderment. "The idea," replied the Mistress, "is that the cup can go to any dog that wants it. Lad's coming _home_. He knows it, too. Just look at him. I promised him he should go home. We can get there by dinner-time, and he has a day's fast to make up for." "But," expostulated the scandalized collie man, "if you withdraw your dog like that, the Association will never allow you to exhibit him at its shows again." "The Association can have a pretty silver cup," retorted the Mistress, "to console it for losing Lad. As for exhibiting him again--well, I wouldn't lose these two ribbons for a hundred dollars, but I wouldn't put my worst enemy's dog to the torture of winning them over again--for a thousand. Come along, Lad, we're going back home." At the talisman-word, Lad broke silence for the first time in all that vilely wretched day. He broke it with a series of thunderously trumpeting barks that quite put to shame the puny noise-making efforts of every other dog in the show. CHAPTER VI LOST! Four of us were discussing abstract themes, idly, as men will, after a good dinner and in front of a country-house fire. Someone asked: "What is the saddest sight in everyday life? I don't mean the most gloomily tragic, but the saddest?" A frivolous member of the fireside group cited a helpless man between two quarreling women. A sentimentalist said: "A lost child in a city street." The Dog-Master contradicted: "A lost _dog_ in a city street." Nobody agreed with him of course; but that was because none of the others chanced to know dogs--to know their psychology--their souls, if you prefer. The dog-man was right. A lost dog in a city street is the very saddest and most hopeless sight in all a city street's abounding everyday sadness. A man between two quarreling women is an object piteous enough, heaven knows. Yet his plight verges too much on the grotesque to be called sad. A lost child?--No. Let a child stand in the middle of a crowded sidewalk and begin to cry. In one minute fifty amateur and professional rescuers have flocked to the Lost One's aid. An hour, at most, suffices to bring it in touch with its frenzied guardians. A lost dog?--Yes. No succoring cohort surges to the relief. A gang of boys, perhaps, may give chase, but assuredly not in kindness. A policeman seeking a record for "mad dog" shooting--a professional dog-catcher in quest of his dirty fee--these will show marked attention to the wanderer. But, again, not in kindness. A dog, at some turn in the street, misses his master--doubles back to where the human demigod was last seen--darts ahead once more to find him, through the press of other human folk--halts, hesitates, begins the same maneuvers all over again; then stands, shaking in panic at his utter aloneness.