When one of the fattest of the mutton-heads waddled into the auto-greased roadway in an ambitious expedition toward the grass-tufted border along the path, Pape pulled his painted pony to a stop and watched with active interest. “Quick, Kicko, round her up!” The shouted command came from the flock-master, appearing at a run around the far side of the band. Unmistakable as the breed of the dog was the intelligence of his work. With warning, staccato yelps he dashed from among the more discreet of his charges, cut off the stray from her goal, snatched her by a mouthful of wool out of the path of a speeding car, then nipped her into a return rush to the safety of The Green. “Great work, Kicko! Here, boy, I want to shake!” Pape, enthusiastic over the best bit of herding he ever had seen done under adverse circumstances, rode toward the dog hero, swung out of the saddle and met him more than halfway in the paw-shaking, ear-scratching formalities that followed. The master, a stout, middle-aged, uniformed expert, showed himself as pleased with the introduction as his canine assistant. He gave his name as Tom Hoey of the Sheepfold, the gabled roof of which could be plainly seen a short distance south and nearer the park wall. Willingly enough he contributed to the information fund of the easy-going stranger. Yes, Kicko was a police dog, the gift of a returned army captain and the only herder of his breed in captivity. The park collie, in active service for years, had been about ready for retirement at the time of the foreigner’s arrival. A short chain attached to the swivel collars on the necks of both had enabled the old Scot to teach the young Belgian the trade of disciplining woolly quadrupeds instead of two-legged humans. “I, for one, don’t hope to meet a better policer in this world and I sure don’t expect to in the next,” the owner boasted. “He’s got a whole repertory of tricks that he’s worked out for his own amusement, besides knowing by heart all the dog A-B-C’s, such as shaking hands, speaking and fetching things. One of the most useful things he does is going for my lunch noontimes. He brings it nice and hot in a tin pail from my house by the wall yonder. There’s just one trouble about him, though—eh, old side Kick? If he meets up with one of the many friends he’s made, or even if he takes a special shine to somebody new—Kicko’s one fault is his sociability—he’ll like as not present my meal to some one that ain’t half as hungry or as entitled to it as I.” “We’ll meet again.” So Pape assured the shepherd pair on continuing his ride. He wished that all the folks he met were as friendly and as easy to understand as they. By comparison, for instance, each and every member of that dressed-up party of Gothamites into whose midst he had insisted himself the other night seemed doubly complex.