Arrived at the country club whose grounds had been fitted for the
charity show, Lad was benched in the shade. And there, all the
rest of the morning, he remained. For Loder, judge of the collies
and Old English Sheepdogs and of two other breeds, had missed a
train from Canada; and had not yet arrived. His various classes
were held up, pending his advent.

"Loder's a lucky man, at that," commented the Toy Breeds judge,
with whom the Master chanced to be talking. "And he'll be still
luckier if he misses the whole show. You 'small exhibitors' have
no notion of the rotten deal handed to a dog-show judge;--though
lots of you do more than your share toward making his life a
burden. Before the judging begins, some of the exhibitors act as
if they wanted to kiss him. Nothing's too good for him. He wades
chin-deep through flattery and loving attentions. Then, after the
judging is over, he is about as popular with those same
exhibitors as a typhoid germ. No one can say bad enough things
about him. He's 'incompetent,' he's 'a grafter,--'he's 'afraid of
the big kennels,'--he's 'drunk.' He's any of these things; or all
of them put together. Nobody's satisfied. Everybody has had a raw
deal. Everybody's hammer is out for the poor slob of a judge.
Well, not everybody's, of course. There are some real sportsmen
left crawling on the surface of the earth. But the big majority
pan him, all the way home; and then some of them roast him in
print. The Income Tax man is a popular favorite, compared with a
dog-show judge."

"But--"