"Whose else would it be?"
"Where"d you get her?"
"Raised her from a pup up."
"From a pup up?"
"Yes, from a pup up."
The robber appeared to be thinking.
"She"s some dog," he remarked. "I never seen one just like her."
For the first time in the existence of either of them, Mr. Pottle felt a faint glow of pride in Violet.
"She"s the only one of her kind in the world," he said.
"I believe you," said the burglar. "And I know a thing or two about dogs, too."
"Really?" said Mr. Pottle, politely.
"Yes, I do," said the burglar and a sad note had softened the gruffness of his voice. "I used to be a dog trainer."
"You don"t tell me?" said Mr. Pottle.
"Yes," said the burglar, with a touch of pride, "I had the swellest dog and pony act in big time vaudeville once."
"Where is it now?" Mr. Pottle was interested.
"Mashed to bologny," said the burglar, sadly. "Train wreck. Lost every single animal. Like that." He snapped melancholy fingers to ill.u.s.trate the sudden demise of his troupe. "That"s why I took to this," he added.
"I ain"t a regular crook. Honest. I just want to get together enough capital to start another show. Another job or two and I"ll have enough."
Mr. Pottle looked his sympathy. The burglar was studying Violet with eyes that brightened visibly.
"If," he said, slowly, "I only had a trick dog like her, I could start again. She"s the funniest looking hound I ever seen, bar none. I can just hear the audiences roaring with laughter." He sighed reminiscently.
"Take her," said Mr. Pottle, handsomely. "She"s yours."
The burglar impaled him with the gimlet eye of suspicion.
"Oh, yes," he said. "I could get away with a dog like that, couldn"t I?
You couldn"t put the cops on my trail if I had a dog like that with me, oh, no. Why, I could just as easy get away with Pike"s Peak or a flock of Masonic Temples as with a dog as different looking as her. No, stranger, I wasn"t born yesterday."
"I won"t have you pinched, I swear I won"t," said Mr. Pottle earnestly.
"Take her. She"s yours."
The burglar resumed the pose of thinker.
"Look here, stranger," he said at length. "Tell you what I"ll do. Just to make the whole thing fair and square and no questions asked, I"ll buy that dog from you."
"You"ll what?" Mr. Pottle articulated.
"I"ll buy her," repeated the burglar.
Mr. Pottle was incapable of replying.
"Well," said the burglar, "will you take a hundred for her?"
Mr. Pottle could not get out a syllable.
"Two hundred, then?" said the burglar.
"Make it three hundred and she"s yours," said Mr. Pottle.
"Sold!" said the burglar.
When morning came to Granville, Mr. Pottle waked his wife by gently, playfully, fanning her pink and white cheek with three bills of a large denomination.
"Blossom," he said, and the smile of his early courting days had come back, "you were right. Violet was a one man dog. I just found the man."
V: _Mr. Pottle and Pageantry_
--1
"He wouldn"t give a cent," announced Mrs. Pottle, blotting up the nucleus of a tear on her cheek with the tip of her gloved finger. ""Not one red cent," was the way he put it."
"What did you want a red cent for, honey?" inquired Mr. Pottle, absently, from out the depths of the sporting page. "Who wouldn"t give you a red cent?"
"Old Felix Winterbottom," she answered.
Mr. Pottle put down his paper.
"Do you mean to say you tackled old frosty-face Felix himself?" he demanded with interest and some awe.
"I certainly did," replied his wife. "Right in his own office."
Her spouse made no attempt to conceal his admiration.
"What did you say; then what did he say; then what did you say?" he queried.
"I was very polite," Mrs. Pottle answered, "and tactful. I said "See here, now, Mr. Winterbottom, you are the richest man in the county, and yet you have the reputation of being the most careful with your money----""