"I infer," said Barbara, "that the Bascom liver is out of repair."

"Correct. It seems absurd, doesn't it, to be affected by another man's
liver while you are supremely unconscious of your own?"

"There are more things in other people's digestions than our philosophy
can account for," she replied, with a wicked perversion of classic
phrase. "What was the primary cause of the explosion?"

"It was all his own fault," explained Roger. "I like dogs almost as well
as I do people, but it doesn't follow that dogs should mix so constantly
with people as they usually are allowed to. I was never in favour of
Judge Bascom's bull pup keeping regular office hours with us, but he
has, ever since the day he waddled in behind the Judge with a small
chain as the connecting link. I got so accustomed to his howling in the
corner of the office where he was chained up that I couldn't do my work
properly when he was asleep. So all went well until the Judge decided to
remove the chain and give the pup more room to develop himself in.

[Sidenote: "Pethood"]

"I tried to dissuade him, but it was no use. I told him he would run
away, and he said, with great dignity, that he did not desire for a pet
anything which had to be tied up in order to be retained. He observed
that the restraining influence worked against the pethood so strongly as
practically to obscure it."

"New word?" laughed Barbara.

"I don't know why it isn't a good word," returned Roger, in defence. "If