"You needn't worry about the effect of city life on your dog," he
went on with venomous bitterness. "The pup won't have a very long
spell of it. If I had my way, that man Halding would be barred
from every dog-show and stuck in jail. It's an old trick of his,
to buy up thoroughbreds, cheap, at shows. The bigger and the
stronger they are, the more he pays for them. He seems to think
pedigreed dogs are better for his filthy purposes than street
curs. They have a higher nervous organism, I suppose. The swine!"

"What do you mean?" asked the Mistress, puzzled by his vehemence.
"I don't--"

"You must have heard of Halding and his so-called 'research
work,'" the superintendent went on. "He is one of the most
notorious vivisectionists in--"

The superintendent got no further. He was talking to empty air.
The Mistress had fled. Her determined small figure made a tumbled
wake through the crowd as she sped toward Bruce's bench. The
puppy was no longer there. In another second the Mistress was at
the door of the building.

A line of parked cars was stretched across the opposite side of
the village street. Into one of these cars a large and loose-
jointed man was lifting a large and loose-jointed dog. The dog
did not like his treatment, and was struggling pathetically in
vain awkwardness to get free.

"Bruce!" called the Mistress, fiercely, as she dashed across the