Mr. Cherkassov leaned forward, his slanting gray eyes opening wide, and dropped his voice almost to a whisper. "Madame, she would _bite_ your hand!" "Then she doesn't deserve to be rescued!" Martha said sharply. Mr. Cherkassov straightened up and began stroking his briefcase. "In one sense she is not even a dog," he suggested. "No, she's an old wolf-thing. Like a cat. Dogs are _loving_!" "Perhaps not morally worthy of your campaign?" "No, of _course_ not. Mr. Cherkassov, you have given me a new thought.... I hadn't realized...." Mr. Cherkassov waited attentively, his fingers tracing another pattern. Paula and Monica looked at Martha and held their breaths. "... hadn't realized how that subversive wolf blood has been creeping into our loving dogs all this long time. Why ... why it's miscegenation! It's _bestiality_! Confess it, Mr. Cherkassov--that's one way you Russians have been infiltrating us, now isn't it?" Mr. Cherkassov raised his sandy eyebrows, and a frosty twinkle shone in his tilted eyes. "You must realize that I could hardly admit to such a thing, even if it were true, Madame Stonery," he said judiciously. "It _is_ true! Go back to your Kremlin, Mr. Cherkassov, and shoot every wolf in Russia to the moon. I'm sure the U.D.D. won't mind!" Mr. Cherkassov and the TASS men stood up and bowed. Martha rose and sailed ahead of them to the door. Hand on knob, she turned to face them. "Our meeting will be historic, Mr. Cherkassov," she said. "I have forced you to betray your country's plot to undermine our loving dogs. You may expect from the U.D.D. instant and massive retaliation! An aroused America will move at once, to set up miscegenation and segregation barriers against your despicable wolf blood!" Paula and Monica stood up, each with her hands clasped under her flushed and excited face. Mr. Cherkassov bowed again. Martha opened the door. "Goodbye, Mr. Cherkassov," she said. "You will, no doubt, be liquidated in a few days." Mr. Cherkassov stepped carefully across the doormat. End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of Love and Moondogs, by Richard McKenna