Now when the two former friends sat fishing in their skiffs they either contemptuously ignored one another or, if they "Huh-Huhed!" at all the "Huhs!" resembled the angry growls of infuriated beasts. The worst of it was that the Appleboys couldn't properly do anything about it. Tunnygate had, as Mrs. Tunnygate sneeringly pointed out, a perfect legal right to push his way through the hedge and tramp across the lawn, and she didn't propose to allow the Appleboys to gain any rights by proscription, either. Not much! Therefore, when Mr. Appleboy addressed to Mr. Tunnygate the remarks with which this story opens, the latter insolently replied in words, form or substance that Mr. Appleboy could go to hell. Moreover, as he went by Mr. Appleboy he took pains to kick over a clod of transplanted sea grass, nurtured by Mrs. Appleboy as the darling of her bosom, and designed to give an air of verisimilitude to an otherwise bare and unconvincing surface of sand. Mr. Appleboy almost cried with vexation. "Oh!" he ejaculated, struggling for words to express the full content of his feeling. "Gosh, but you're--mean!" He hit it! Curiously enough, that was exactly the word! Tunnygate was mean--and his meanness was second only to that of the fat hippopotama his wife. Then, without knowing why, for he had no formulated ideas as to the future, and probably only intended to try to scare Tunnygate with vague threats, Appleboy added: "I warn you not to go through that hedge again! Understand--I warn you! And if you do I won't be responsible for the consequences!" He really didn't mean a thing by the words, and Tunnygate knew it. "Huh!" retorted the latter contemptuously. "You!" Mr. Appleboy went inside the shack and banged the door. Mrs. Appleboy was peeling potatoes in the kitchen-living room. "I can't stand it!" he cried weakly. "He's driving me wild!" "Poor lamb!" soothed Mrs. Appleboy, peeling an interminable rind. "Ain't that just a sweetie? Look! It's most as long as your arm!" She held it up dangling between her thumb and fore-finger. Then, with a groan she dropped it at his feet. "I know it's a real burden to you, deary!" she sighed. Suddenly they both bent forward with startled eyes, hypnotized by the peel upon the floor. Unmistakably it spelt "dog"! They looked at one another significantly. "It is a symbol!" breathed Mrs. Appleboy in an awed whisper. "Whatever it is, it's some grand idea!" exclaimed her husband. "Do you know anybody who's got one? I mean a--a--" "I know just what you mean," she agreed. "I wonder we never thought of it before! But there wouldn't be any use in getting any dog!" "Oh, no!" he concurred. "We want a real--dog!" "One you know about!" she commented. "The fact is," said he, rubbing his forehead, "if they know about 'em they do something to 'em. It ain't so easy to get the right kind."