Lad: A Dog, page 9
He strolled on. The Mistress was winking very fast and was bending over Lad, petting him and whispering to him. The Master looked in curiosity at a kennel man who was holding down a nearby collie while a second man was trimming the scared dog’s feet and fetlocks with a pair of curved shears; and now the Master noted that nearly every dog but Lad was thus clipped as to ankle.
At an adjoining cell a woman was sifting almost a pound of talcum powder into her dog’s fur to make the coat fluffier. Elsewhere similar weird preparations were in progress. And Lad’s only preparation had been baths and brushing! The Master began to feel like a fool.
People all along the collie line presently began to brush dogs (smoothing the fur the wrong way to fluff it) and to put other finishing touches on the poor beasts’ make-up. The collie man strolled back to 658.
“The Novice class in collies is going to be called presently,” he told the Mistress. “Where’s your exhibition leash and choke collar? I’ll help you put them on.”
“Why, we’ve only this chain,” said the Mistress. “We bought it for Lad yesterday, and this is his regular collar-though he never has had to wear it. Do we have to have another kind?”
“You don’t have to unless you want to,” said the collie man, “but it’s best—especially, the choke collar. You see, when exhibitors go into the ring, they hold their dogs by the leash close to the neck. And if their dogs have choke collars, why, then they’ve got to hold their heads high when the leash is pulled. They’ve got to, to keep from strangling. It gives them a fine, proud carriage of the head, that counts a lot with some judges. All dog photos are taken that way. Then the leash is blotted out of the negative. Makes the dog look showy, too—keeps him from slumping. Can’t slump much when you’re trying not to choke, you know.”
“It’s horrible! Horrible!” shuddered the Mistress. “I wouldn’t put such a thing on Lad for all the prizes on earth. When I read Davis’ wonderful Bar Sinister story, I thought dog shows were a real treat to dogs. I see, now, they’re—”
“Your class is called!” interrupted the collie man. “Keep his head high, keep him moving as showily as you can. Lead him close to you with the chain as short as possible. Don’t be scared if any of the other dogs in the ring happen to fly at him. The attendants will look out for all that. Good luck.”
Down the aisle and to the wired gate of the northeastern ring the unhappy Mistress piloted the unhappier Lad. The big dog gravely kept beside her, regardless of other collies moving in the same direction. The Garden had begun to fill with visitors, and the ring was surrounded with interested “rail-birds.” The collie classes, as usual, were among those to be judged on the first day of the four.
Through the gate into the ring the Mistress piloted Lad. Six other Novice dogs were already there. Beautiful creatures they were, and all but one were led by kennel men. At the table, behind a ledger flanked by piles of multicolored ribbons, sat the clerk. Beside the platform stood a wizened and elderly little man in tweeds. He was McGilead, who had been chosen as judge for the collie division. He was a Scot, and he was also a man with stubborn opinions of his own as to dogs.
Around the ring, at the judge’s order, the Novice collies were paraded. Most of them stepped high and fast and carried their heads proudly aloft—the thin choke collars cutting deep into their furry necks. One entered was a harumscarum puppy who writhed and bit and whirled about in ecstasy of terror.
Lad moved solemnly along at the Mistress’ side. He did not pant or curvet or look showy. He was miserable and every line of his splendid body showed his misery. The Mistress, too, glancing at the more spectacular dogs, wanted to cry—not because she was about to lose, but because Lad was about to lose. Her heart ached for him. Again she blamed herself bitterly for bringing him here.
McGilead, hands in pockets, stood sucking at an empty brier pipe, and scanning the parade that circled around him. Presently he stepped up to the Mistress, checked her as she filed past him, and said to her with a sort of sorrowful kindness :
“Please take your dog over to the far end of the ring. Take him into the comer where he won’t be in my way while I am judging.”
Yes, he spoke courteously enough, but the Mistress would rather have had him hit her across the face. Meekly she obeyed his command. Across the ring, to the very farthest comer, she went—poor beautiful Lad beside her, disgraced, weeded out of the competition at the very start. There, far out of the contest, she stood, a drooping little figure, feeling as though everyone was sneering at her dear dog’s disgrace.
Lad seemed to sense her sorrow. For, as he stood beside her, head and tail low, he whined softly and licked her hand as if in encouragement. She ran her fingers along his silky head. Then, to keep from crying, she watched the other contestants.
No longer were these parading. One at a time and then in twos, the judge was standing them on the platform. He looked at their teeth. He pressed their heads between his hands. He “hefted” their hips. He ran his fingers through their coats. He pressed his palm upward against their underbodies. He subjected them to a score of such annoyances, but he did it all with a quick and sure touch that not even the crankiest of them could resent.
Then he stepped back and studied the quartet. After that he seemed to remember Lad’s presence, and, as though by way of earning his fee, he slouched across the ring to where the forlorn Mistress was petting her dear disgraced dog.
Lazily, perfunctorily, the judge ran his hand over Lad, with absolutely none of the thoroughness that had marked his inspection of the other dogs. Apparently there was no need to look for the finer points in a disqualified collie. The sketchy examination did not last three seconds. At its end the judge jotted down a number on a pad he held. Then he laid one hand heavily on Lad’s head and curtly thrust out his other hand at the Mistress.
“Can I take him away now?” she asked, still stroking Lad’s fur.
“Yes,” rasped the judge, “and take this along with him.”
In his outstretched hand fluttered a little bunch of silk—dark blue, with gold lettering on it.
The blue ribbon! First prize in the Novice class! And this grouchy little judge was awarding it—to Lad!
The Mistress looked very hard at the bit of blue and gold in her fingers. She saw it through a queer mist. Then, as she stooped to fasten it to Lad’s collar, she furtively kissed the tiny white spot on the top of his head.
“It’s something like the Bar Sinister victory after all!” she exclaimed joyously as she rejoined the delighted Master at the ring gate. “But, oh, it was terrible for a minute or two, wasn’t it?”
Now, Angus McGilead, Esq. (late of Linlithgow, Scot land), had a knowledge of collies such as is granted to few men, and this very fact made him a wretchedly bad dog-show judge, as the Kennel Club, which—on the strength of his fame—had engaged his services for this single occasion, speedily learned. The greatest lawyer makes often the worst judge. Legal annals prove this; and the same thing applies to dog experts. They are sane rather than judicial.
McGilead had scant patience with the ultramodern, inbred and greyhoundlike collies which had so utterly departed from their ancestral standards. At one glimpse he had recognized Lad as a dog after his own heart—a dog that brought back to him the murk and magic of the Highland moors.
He had noted the deep chest, the mighty forequarters, the tiny white paws, the incredible wealth of outer- and undercoat, the brush, the grand head, and the soul in the eyes. This was such a dog as McGilead’s shepherd ancestors had admitted as an honored equal, at hearth and board—such a dog, for brain and brawn and beauty, as a Highland master would no sooner sell than he would sell his own child.
McGilead, therefore, had waved Lad aside while he judged the lesser dogs of his class, lest he be tempted to look too much at Lad and too little at them; and he rejoiced, at the last, to give honor where all honor was due.
Through dreary hours that day Lad lay disconsolate in his cell, nose between paws, while the stream of visitors flowed sluggishly past him. His memory of the Guest Law prevented him from showing his teeth when some of these passing humans paused in front of the compartment to pat him or consult his number in their catalogues. But he accorded not so much as one look—to say nothing of a handshake—to any of them.
A single drop of happiness was in his sorrow cup. He had, seemingly, done something that made both the Master and the Mistress very, very proud of him. He did not know just why they should be for he had done nothing clever. In fact, he had been at his dullest. But they were proud of him—undeniably proud, and this made him glad, through all his black despondency.
Even the collie man seemed to regard him with more approval than before—not that Lad cared at all; and two or three exhibitors came over for a special look at him. From one of these exhibitors the Mistress learned of a dog-show rule that was wholly new to her.
She was told that the winning dog of each and every class was obliged to return later to the ring to compete in what was known as the Winners’ class—a contest whose entrants included every class victor from Novice to Open. Briefly, this special competition was to determine which class winner was the best collie in the whole list of winners and, as such, entitled to a certain number of “points” toward a championship. There were eight of these winners.
One or two such world-famed champions as Grey Mist and Southport Sample were in the show “for exhibition only.” But the pick of the remaining leaders must compete in the winners’ class—Sunnybank Lad among them. The Master’s heart sank at this news.
“I’m sorry!” he said. “You see, it’s one thing to win as a Novice against a bunch of untried dogs, and quite another to compete against the best dogs in the show. I wish we could get out of it.”
“Never mind!” answered the Mistress. “Laddie has won his ribbon. They can’t take that away from him. There’s a silver cup for the Winners’ class, though. I wish there had been one for the Novices.”
The day wore on. At last came the call for “Winners!” And for the second time poor Lad plodded reluctantly into the ring with the Mistress. But now, instead of novice dogs, he was confronted by the cream of colliedom.
Lad’s heartsick aspect showed the more intensely in such company. It grieved the Mistress bitterly to see his disconsolate air. She thought of the three days and nights to come —the nights when she and the Master could not be with him, when he must lie listening to the babel of yells and barks all around, with nobody to speak to him except some neglectful and sleepy attendant. And for the sake of a blue ribbon she had brought this upon him!
The Mistress came to a sudden and highly unsportsmanlike resolution.
Again the dogs paraded the ring. Again the judge studied them from between half-shut eyes. But this time he did not wave Lad to one side. The Mistress had noted, during the day, that McGilead had always made known his decisions by first laying his hand on the victor’s head. And she watched breathless for such a gesture.
One by one the dogs were weeded out until only two remained. Of these two, one was Lad—the Mistress’ heart banged crazily—and the other was Champion Coldstream Guard. The Champion was a grand dog, gold-and-white of hue, perfect of coat and line, combining all that was best in the old and new styles of collies. He carried his head nobly aloft with no help from the choke collar. His “tulip” ears hung at precisely the right curve.
Lad and Coldstream Guard were placed shoulder to shoulder on the platform. Even the Mistress could not fail to contrast her pet’s woebegone aspect with the Champion’s alert beauty.
“Lad!” she said, very low, and speaking with slow intentness as McGilead compared the two. “Laddie, we’re going home. Home! Home, Lad!”
Home! At the word, a thrill went through the great dog. His shoulders squared. Up went his head and his ears. His dark eyes fairly glowed with eagerness as he looked expectantly up at the Mistress. Home!
Yet, despite the transformation, the other was the finer dog—from a mere show viewpoint. The Mistress could see he was. Even the new uptilt of Lad’s ears could not make those ears so perfect in shape and attitude as were the Champion’s.
With almost a gesture of regret McGilead laid his hand athwart Coldstream Guard’s head. The Mistress read the verdict, and she accepted it.
“Come, Laddie, dear,” she said tenderly. “You’re second, anyway, Reserve Winner. That’s something.”
“Wait!” snapped McGilead.
The judge was seizing one of Champion Coldstream Guard’s supershapely ears and turning it backward. His sensitive fingers, falling on the dog’s head in token of victory, had encountered an odd stiffness in the curve of the ear. Now he began to examine that ear, and then the other, and thereby he disclosed a most clever bit of surgical bandaging.
Neatly crisscrossed, inside each of the Champion’s ears, was a succession of adhesive-plaster strips cut thin and running from tip to orifice. The scientific applying of these strips had painfully imparted to the prick-ears (the dog’s one flaw) the perfect tulip shape so desirable as a show quality. Champion Coldstream Guard’s silken ears could not have had other than ideal shape and posture if he had wanted them to—while that crisscross of sticky strips held them in position!
Now, this was no new trick—the ruse that the Champion’s handlers had employed. Again and again in bench shows, it had been employed upon bull terriers. A year or two ago a woman was ordered from the ring, at the Garden, when plaster was found inside her terrier’s ears, but seldom before had it been detected in a collie—in which a prick-ear usually counts as a fatal blemish.
McGilead looked at the Champion. Long and searchingly he looked at the man who held the Champion’s leash—and who fidgeted grinningly under the judge’s glare. Then McGilead laid both hands on Lad’s great honest head—almost as in benediction.
“Your dog wins, Madam,” he said, “and while it is no part of a judge’s duty to say so, I am heartily glad. I won’t insult you by asking if he is for sale, but if ever you have to part with him—”
He did not finish, but abruptly gave the Mistress the “Winning Class” rosette.
And now, as Lad left the ring, hundreds of hands were put out to pat him. All at once he was a celebrity.
Without returning the dog to the bench, the Mistress went directly to the collie man.
“When do they present the cups?” she asked.
“Not until Saturday night, I believe,” said the man. “I congratulate you both on—”
“In order to win his cup, Lad will have to stay in this—this inferno—for three days and nights longer?”
“Of course. All the dogs-”
“If he doesn’t stay, he won’t get the cup?”
“No. It would go to the Reserve, I suppose, or to—”
“Good!” declared the Mistress in relief. “Then he won’t be defrauding anyone, and they can’t rob him of his two ribbons because I have those.”
“What do you mean?” asked the puzzled collie man.
But the Master understood—and approved.
“Good!” he said. “I wanted all day to suggest it to you, but I didn’t have the nerve. Come around to the Exhibitors’ Entrance. I’ll go ahead and start the car.”
“But what’s the idea?” queried the collie man in bewilderment.
“The idea,” replied the Mistress, “is that the cup can go to any dog that wants it. Lad’s coming home. He knows it, too. Just look at him. I promised him he should go home. We can get there by dinnertime, and he has a day’s fast to make up for.”
“But,” expostulated the scandalized collie man, “if you withdraw your dog like that, the Association will never allow you to exhibit him at its shows again.”
“The Association can have a pretty silver cup,” retorted the Mistress, “to console it for losing Lad. As for exhibiting him again—well, I wouldn’t lose these two ribbons for a hundred dollars, but I wouldn’t put my worst enemy’s dog to the torture of winning them over again—for a thousand. Come along, Lad, we’re going back home.”
At the talisman word, Lad broke silence for the first time in all that vilely wretched day. He broke it with a series of thunderously trumpeting barks that quite put to shame the puny noise-making efforts of every other dog in the show.
6
LOST!
FOUR OF US WERE DISCUSSING ABSTRACT THEMES, IDLY, AS men will, after a good dinner and in front of a country-house fire. Someone asked:
“What is the saddest sight in everyday life? I don’t mean the most gloomily tragic, but the saddest.”
A frivolous member of the fireside group cited a helpless man between two quarreling women. A sentimentalist said:
“A lost child in a city street.”
The dog master contradicted:
“A lost dog in a city street.”
Nobody agreed with him, of course; but that was because none of the others chanced to know dogs—to know their psychology—their souls, if you prefer. The dogman was right. A lost dog in a city street is the very saddest and most hopeless sight in all a city street’s abounding everyday sadness.
A man between two quarreling women is an object piteous enough, heaven knows. Yet his plight verges too much on the grotesque to be called sad.
