that his unawakened young brain had the power to grasp.

In looks, too, Bruce was a failure. His yellowish-and-white body
was all but shapeless. His coat was thick and heavy enough, but
it showed a tendency to curl--almost to kink--instead of waving
crisply, as a collie's ought. The head was coarse and blurred in
line. The body was gaunt, in spite of its incessant feedings. As
for contour or style--

It was when the Master, in disgust, pointed out these diverse
failings of the pup, that the Mistress was wont to draw on
historic precedent for other instances of slow development, and
to take in vain the names of Thackeray, Lincoln, Washington and
Bismarck and the rest.

"Give him time!" she urged once. "He isn't quite six months old
yet; and he has grown so terribly fast. Why, he's over two feet
tall, at the shoulder, even now--much bigger than most full-grown
collies. Champion Howgill Rival is spoken of as a 'big' dog; yet
he is only twenty-four inches at the shoulder, Mr. Leighton says.
Surely it's something to own a dog that is so big."

"It IS 'something,'" gloomily conceded the Master. "In our case
it is a catastrophe. I don't set up to be an expert judge of
collies, so maybe I am all wrong about him. I'm going to get
professional opinion, though. Next week they are going to have
the spring dogshow at Hampton. It's a little hole-in-a-corner
show, of course. But Symonds is to be the all-around judge,
except for the toy breeds. And Symonds knows collies, from the
ground up. I am going to take Bruce over there and enter him for