"Quarterman raised himself up on his elbow when he heard the news and said he must be found at any cost; he was worth five hundred dollars. The men started out, of course; searched the stables, boat-houses, swamp, and fields clear down to the water's edge; whistled and called; did all the things you do when a dog is lost--but no setter. Everybody wondered why he ran away. Some said one thing, some another. I knew why. _He had gone off in search of a gentleman._" "Did Quarterman get well?" ventured Lonnegan. "I don't know and I don't care. I left the next morning." "Did Quarterman get his dog back?" asked Boggs. "Not while I was there. I could have told him where to look for him, but I didn't. I saw him on a porch with some children about a week after that, when I was driving through a neighboring village--but I didn't send word to Quarterman. I had too much respect for the dog. "Come here, old fellow," and Mac took the great head of the St. Bernard between his warm hands and the two snuggled their cheeks together. PART VII _Containing Mr. Alexander MacWhirter's Views on Lord Ponsonby, Major Yancey, and their Kind._ When I entered No. 3 to-day Mac was struggling with a small upright piano. He and Marny had rolled it out of Wharton's room at the end of the corridor, and the two had guided it between the open door and the screen of No. 3 and were now whirling it into the corner occupied by Mac's easel. This done, the two began to make ready for the evening's entertainment. The big divan where Mac slept was dragged from its shelter, covered with a rug, and placed against the wall facing the fireplace; the table was stripped of its junk (there is no other word for the miscellaneous collection of sketches, books, curios, matches, brushes, tubes of color, half-used bottles of siccative and the like, which always litters the table's surface), wiped clean, and placed at right angles with the divan; all the uncomfortable chairs moved out of sight; a stool backed up under the window to hold a keg of ice-cool beer, to be brought in later and wreathed with green; new and old mugs--those of the regular members, and brand new ones for the invited guests--lined up on the cleared table: all these shiftings, strippings, and refittings being especially designed for the comfort of a chosen few, who on these rare nights (only once a year) were admitted into the charmed half-circle that curved about the wood fire in No. 3.