The doctor talked all the time, while he worked swiftly over the dog, describing to the girl just what he was doing. Venetia watched him without flinching, though the tears would roll down her face. She put one hand under Pete's limp head to hold it, as she would have liked to have her head held under the same circumstances. At last the doctor straightened himself and exclaimed:-- "Correct! He's done up in first-class style." He went to the sink and washed his arms and hands. "Yes, Peter is as well patched as if the great Dr. Cutem had done it himself and charged you ten thousand dollars for the job. I donno' but it's better done. And he would have charged you all right!" He gave a loud, ironical laugh and swashed the water over his bare arms. Then he came back to the operating table, wiping his hands and arms on a roller towel that was none too clean. "You can quit that sponge now, Miss, and I guess doggie won't appreciate the little attention of holding his head yet awhile. He hasn't got to the flower-and-fruit stage yet, have you, eh, purp?" Venetia stood like a little girl, awkwardly waiting for orders. "What's your name?" the doctor demanded abruptly. "Venetia--Venetia Phillips." "Well, Miss Venetia, you seem fond of animals. Would you like to see my collection?" Without waiting for an answer he strode to the farther end of the room and opened a trap-door. "Come over here!" The girl peeped through the trap-door into the cellar. There, in a number of pens, were huddled a small menagerie of animals,--dogs, cats, guinea-pigs, rabbits. "What do you do with all of them?" the girl asked, her heart sinking with foreboding. "Cut 'em up!" "Cut them up?" "Sure! And dose 'em. This is an experimental laboratory." The doctor waved his hand rather grandly over the dirty room. "There are not many like it in the city of Chicago, I can tell you. I am conducting investigations, and I use these little fellers." "It's horrid!" the girl exclaimed, looking apprehensively at Pete. "Not a bit of it!" The doctor reached down his hand and pulled up a rabbit, a little mangy object, which tottered a few steps and then fell down as if dizzy. "Jack's had fifteen drops of the solution of hydrochlorate of manganese this morning. He looks kind of dopy, don't he? He'll be as smart as a trivet to-morrow. But I guess he's about reached his limit of hydrochlorate, eh, Jack?" In spite of herself the girl's curiosity was aroused, and when the doctor had returned Jack to his pen, she asked, "What's that queer machine over there?"