During the endless wait before dinner was announced she slipped out to the dining room. Thaxton was there, flustered and curt, trying to coerce his rebellious upper servants into setting the wheels of domestic machinery into motion. Vogel already had given warning, proclaiming briefly but proudly the list of his former super-excellent positions, and repeating, as a sort of eternal slogan of refrain that he was a butler and not a boarding-house head waiter. It was at this point that Hester Gregg took charge. Grateful and sweating, Vail went back to the living room to listen gloomily to the Moselys’ recital to Chase and Doris of the various inns at which they had been either cheated or incompetently served. Though the couple did not say so in actual words, Thaxton was left to infer that Vailholme combined the worst qualities of all their tour’s other wretched stopping places. As he listened to the tale, Miss Gregg swept into the room again with the pure exaltation in her eyes of one who has triumphed in a seemingly hopeless battle. Presently thereafter Vogel announced dinner. As the party filed stragglingly into the dining room, Clive Creede came downstairs and joined them. He seemed a little better for his afternoon’s rest, but still looked sick and shaky. Thaxton’s collie, as usual, accompanied Vail to the dining room, lying down majestically on the floor at the host’s left. From the shelter of Joshua Q. Mosely’s bulk appeared the obese police dog, who also had followed into the dining room. He disposed himself in a shadowy space, behind Mrs. Mosely’s chair, where every passing servant must stumble unseeingly over him. “I hope you don’t mind our bringing Petty to dinner with us,” said Joshua Q., as they sat down. “He’s quite one of the family. The wife would as soon travel without her powder rag as without Petty. He goes everywhere with us. Nice collie you’ve got there. I notice you had to speak pretty firm to him, though, to keep him from pestering poor Petty. Collies aren’t as clever at minding as police dogs. Had him long?” “He was bred by Mr. Creede, here,” answered Thaxton. “When Mr. Creede went overseas, he left him at Vailholme.” “And when I got back,” put in Clive, speaking for the first time, and addressing Doris, “Macduff had clean forgotten me and had adopted Thax. So I let him stay on here. Funny, wasn’t it? I’ve heard collies never forget. I suppose that’s another nature fake. For Macduff certainly had forgotten me. At least, he was civil to me, but he’d lost all interest in me.” Then fell a pause. Miss Gregg arose to the occasion by starting the conversation-ball to rolling again. “I think,” she said, “there ought to be a S. P. C. A. law against naming animals till they’re grown. People call a baby pup ‘Fluffy’ or ‘Beauty.’ And then he grows up to look like Bill Sikes’ dog. For instance, there’s nothing ‘petty’ about that big police dog. Yet when he was a--”