what they mean. Or perhaps they are influenced by the known fact that
the Colonel has more than once closed his kennel doors to a long
string of safe prizes by refusing to exhibit a second time some hound
who, on a first showing, has won golden opinions and high awards. But
these refusals were never whimsical. They were due always to the
Colonel's decision, based upon close and sympathetic observation,
that, for the particular hound in question, exhibition represented a
painful ordeal.

Among the breeders who at one time or another have visited the Shaws
kennels are a few of the knowing fellows who smile at mention of the
Colonel's name. Well, let them smile. It is perhaps as well for them
that the Colonel is pretty tolerably indifferent alike to their smiles
and to the awards of show judges; for, if Colonel Forde were seriously
bent upon "pot-hunting," there would not be anything like so many "pots"
about for other people; and these particular gentry would not at all
like that.

"Kennels!" said one of them at a dog-show in Brighton, "why, it's more
like a kindergarten. There's a sitting-room, a kind of drawing-room, if
you'll believe me, in the middle of the kennels, for tea-parties! And as
for the dogs, well, they just do whatever they like. As often as not the
kennels are empty, except for pups, and the hounds all over the garden
and house--a regular kindergarten."

It will be seen then that the Colonel must clearly have merited the
disdainful smiles. But I am bound to say I never heard of any one
being bitten or frightened by a dog at Shaws, and it is notorious
that, difficult though bloodhound whelps are to rear, the Colonel
rarely loses one in a litter. Still, "kindergarten" is certainly a