It was like the Mistress to think of that, and to reward the dog-owner whose pet"s old age had been made happiest. Hers was destined to be the most popular Specialty of the entire Show.
The Master, at first, was disposed to refuse the invitation to take any of his collies to Hampton. The dogs were, for the most part, out of coat. The weather was warm. At these amateur shows--as at too many professional exhibits--there was always danger of some sick dog spreading epidemic. Moreover, the living-room trophy-shelf at The Place was already comfortably filled with cups; won at similar contests. Then, too, the Master had somehow acquired a most causeless and cordial dislike for the Wall Street Farmer.
"I believe I"ll send an extra ten dollars," he told the Mistress, "and save the dogs a day of torment. What do you think?"
By way of answer, the Mistress sat down on the floor where Lad was sprawled, asleep. She ran her fingers through his forest of ruff. The great dog"s brush pounded drowsily against the floor at the loved touch; and he raised his head for further caress.
"Laddie"s winter coat is coming in beautifully," she said at last. "I don"t suppose there"ll be another dog there with such a coat. Besides, it"s to be outdoors, you see. So he won"t catch any sickness. If it were a four-day show--if it were anything longer than a one-day show--he shouldn"t go a step. But, you see, I"d be right there with him all the time. And I"d take him into the ring myself, as I did at Madison Square Garden. And he won"t be unhappy or lonely or--or anything. And I always love to have people see how splendid he is. And those Specialty Trophies are pretty, sometimes. So--so we"ll do just whatever you say about it."
Which, naturally, settled the matter, once and for all.
When a printed copy of the Specialty Lists arrived, a week later, the Mistress and the Master scanned eagerly its pages.
There were cups offered for the best tri-color collie, for the best mother-and-litter, for the collie with the finest under-and-outer coat, for the best collie exhibited by a woman, for the collie whose get had won most prizes in other shows. At the very bottom of the section, and in type six points larger than any other announcement on the whole schedule, were the words:
"_Presented, by the Hon. Hugh Lester Maury of New York City--18-KARAT GOLD SPECIALTY CUP, FOR COLLIES (conditions announced later)._"
"A gold cup!" sighed the Mistress, yielding to Delusions of Grandeur, "A _gold_ cup! I never heard of such a thing, at a dog show. And--and won"t it look perfectly gorgeous in the very center of our Trophy Shelf, there--with the other cups radiating from it on each side?
And----"
"Hold on!" laughed the Master, trying to mask his own thrill, man-fashion, by wetblanketing his wife"s enthusiasm. "Hold on! We haven"t got it, yet. I"ll enter Lad for it, of course. But so will every other collie-owner who reads that. Besides, even if Lad should win it, we"d have to buy a microscope to see the thing. It will probably be about half the size of a thimble. Gold cups cost gold money, you know. And I don"t suppose this "Hon. Hugh Lester Maury of New York City" is squandering more than ten or fifteen dollars at most on a country dog show. Even for the Red Cross. I suppose he"s some Wall Street chum that Glure has wheedled into giving a Specialty. He"s a novelty to me. I never heard of him before. Did you?"
"No," admitted the Mistress. "But I feel I"m beginning to love him. Oh, Laddie," she confided to the dog, "I"m going to give you a bath in naphtha soap every day till then; and brush you, two hours every morning; and feed you on liver and----"
""Conditions announced later,"" quoted the Master, studying the big-type offer once more. "I wonder what that means. Of course, in a Specialty Show, anything goes. But----"
"I don"t care what the conditions are," interrupted the Mistress, refusing to be disheartened. "Lad can come up to them. Why, there isn"t a greater dog in America than Lad. And you know it."
"I know it," a.s.sented the pessimistic Master. "But will the Judge?
You might tell him so."
"Lad will tell him," promised the Mistress. "Don"t worry."
On Labor Day morning a thousand cars, from a radius of fifty miles, were converging upon the much-advertised village of Hampton; whence, by climbing a tortuous first-speed hill, they presently chugged into the still-more-advertised estate of Hamilcar Q. Glure, Wall Street Farmer.
There, the sylvan stillness was shattered by barks in every key, from Pekingese falsetto to St. Bernard ba.s.s-thunder. An open stretch of shaded sward--backed by a stable that looked more like a dissolute cathedral--had been given over to ten double rows of "benches," for the anchorage of the Show"s three hundred exhibits. Above the central show-ring a banner was strung between two tree tops. It bore a blazing red cross at either end. In its center was the legend:
"_WELCOME TO GLURE TOWERS!_"
The Wall Street Farmer, as I have hinted, was a man of much taste--of a sort.
Lad had enjoyed the ten-mile spin through the cool morning air, in the tonneau of The Place"s only car--albeit the course of baths and combings of the past week had long since made him morbidly aware that a detested dog show was somewhere at hand. Now, even before the car entered the fearsome feudal gateway of Glure Towers, the collie"s ears and nose told him the hour of ordeal was at hand.
His zest in the ride vanished. He looked reproachfully at the Mistress and tried to bury his head under her circling arm. Lad loathed dog shows; as does every dog of high-strung nerves and higher intelligence. The Mistress, after one experience, had refrained from breaking his heart by taking him to those horrors known as "two-or-more-day Shows." But, as she herself took such childish delight in the local one-day contests, she had schooled herself to believe Lad must enjoy them, too.
Lad, as a matter of fact, preferred these milder ordeals, merely as a man might prefer one day of jail or toothache to two or more days of the same misery. But--even as he knew many lesser things--he knew the adored Mistress and Master reveled in such atrocities as dog shows; and that he, for some reason, was part of his two G.o.ds" pleasure in them. Therefore, he made the best of the nuisance. Which led his owners to a certainty that he had grown to like it.
Parking the car, the Mistress and Master led the unhappy dog to the clerk"s desk; received his number tag and card, and were shown where to bench him. They made Lad as nearly comfortable as possible, on a straw-littered raised stall; between a supercilious Merle and a fluffily disconsolate sable-and-white six-month puppy that howled ceaselessly in an agony of fright.
The Master paused for a moment in his quest of water for Lad, and stared open-mouthed at the Merle.
"Good Lord!" he mumbled, touching the Mistress" arm and pointing to the gray dog. "That"s the most magnificent collie I ever set eyes on. It"s farewell to poor old Laddie"s hopes, if he is in any of the same cla.s.ses with that marvel. Say goodby, right now, to your hopes of the Gold Cup; and to "Winners" in the regular collie division."
"I won"t say goodby to it," refused the Mistress. "I won"t do anything of the sort. Lad"s every bit as beautiful as that dog. Every single bit."
"But not from the show-judge"s view," said the Master. "This Merle"s a gem. Where in blazes did he drop from, I wonder? These "no-point"
out-of-town Specialty Shows don"t attract the stars of the Kennel Club circuits. Yet, this is as perfect a dog as ever Grey Mist was. It"s a pleasure to see such an animal. Or," he corrected himself, "it would be, if he wasn"t pitted against dear old Lad. I"d rather be kicked than take Lad to a show to be beaten. Not for my sake or even for yours. But for his. Lad will be sure to know. He knows everything.
Laddie, old friend, I"m sorry. Dead-_sorry_."
He stooped down and patted Lad"s satin head. Both Master and Mistress had always carried their fondness for Lad to an extent that perhaps was absurd. Certainly absurd to the man or woman who has never owned such a super-dog as Lad. As not one man or woman in a thousand has.
Together, the Mistress and the Master made their way along the collie section, trying to be interested in the line of barking or yelling entries.
"Twenty-one collies in all," summed up the Master, as they reached the end. "Some quality dogs among them, too. But not one of the lot, except the Merle, that I"d be afraid to have Lad judged against. The Merle"s our Waterloo. Lad is due for his first defeat. Well, it"ll be a fair one. That"s one comfort."
"It doesn"t comfort _me_, in the very least," returned the Mistress, adding:
"Look! There is the trophy table. Let"s go over. Perhaps the Gold Cup is there. If it isn"t too precious to leave out in the open."
The Gold Cup was there. It was plainly--or, rather, flamingly--visible.
Indeed, it smote the eye from afar. It made the surrounding array of pretty silver cups and engraved medals look tawdrily insignificant.
Its presence had, already, drawn a goodly number of admirers--folk at whom the guardian village constable, behind the table, stared with sour distrust.
The Gold Cup was a huge bowl of unchased metal, its softly glowing surface marred only by the script words:
"_Maury Specialty Gold Cup. Awarded to----_"
There could be no shadow of doubt as to the genuineness of the claim that the trophy was of eighteen-karat gold. Its value spoke for itself. The vessel was like a half melon in contour and was supported by four severely plain claws. Its rim flared outward in a wide curve.
"It"s--it"s all the world like an inverted derby hat!" exclaimed the Mistress, after one long dumb look at it. "And it"s every bit as big as a derby hat. Did you ever see anything so ugly--and so Croesusful?
Why, it must have cost--it must have cost----"
"Just sixteen hundred dollars, Ma"am," supplemented the constable, beginning to take pride in his office of guardian to such a treasure.
"Sixteen hundred dollars, flat. I heard Mr. Glure sayin" so myself.
Don"t go handlin" it, please."
"Handling it?" repeated The Mistress. "I"d as soon think of handling the National Debt!"
The Superintendent of the Show strolled up and greeted the Mistress and the Master. The latter scarce heard the neighborly greeting. He was scowling at the precious trophy as at a personal foe.
"I see you"ve entered Lad for the Gold Cup," said the Superintendent.
"Sixteen collies, in all, are entered for it. The conditions for the Gold Cup contest weren"t printed till too late to mail them.
So I"m handing out the slips this morning. Mr. Glure took charge of their printing. They didn"t get here from the job shop till half an hour ago. And I don"t mind telling you they"re causing a lot of kicks. Here"s one of the copies. Look it over, and see what Lad"s up against."
"Who"s the Hon. Hugh Lester Maury, of New York?" suddenly demanded the Master, rousing himself from his glum inspection of the Cup. "I mean the man who donated that--that Gold Hat?"