y is our Sing Song Silly.
And this dog sings. And he has a crinkled ear. And his name is
Michael."

"Impossible," said Harley.

"It is when the impossible comes true that life proves worth while," she
retorted. "And this is one of those worth-whiles of impossibles. I know
it."

Still the man of him said impossible, and still the woman of her insisted
that this was an impossible come true. By this time the dog on the stage
was singing "God Save the King."

"That shows I am right," Villa contended. "No American, in America,
would teach a dog 'God Save the King.' An Englishman originally owned
that dog and taught it. The Solomons are British."

"That's a far cry," he smiled. "But what gets me is that ear. I
remember it now. I remember the day when we were on the beach at Tulagi
with Jerry, and when his brother came ashore from the _Eugenie_ in a
whaleboat. And his brother had that self-same, loppy, crinkled ear."

"And more," Villa argued. "How many singing dogs have we ever known!
Only one--Jerry. Evidently such a type occurs rarely. The same family
would more likely produce similar types than different families. The
family of Terrence and Biddy produced Jerry. And this is Michael."

"He _was_ rough-coated, along with a crinkly ear," Harley meditated back.
"I see him distinctly as he stood up in the bow of the whaleboat and as
he ran along the beach side by side with Jerry."

"If Jerry should to-morrow run side by side with him you would be
convinced?" she queried.

"It was their trick, and the trick of Terrence and Biddy before them," he
agreed. "But it's a far cry from the Solomons to the United States."

"Jerry is such a far cry," she replied. "And if Jerry won from the
Solomons to California, then is there anything more remarkable in Michael
so winning?--Oh, listen!"

For the dog on the stage, now responding to its one encore, was singing
"Home, Sweet Home." This finished, Jacob Henderson, to tumultuous
applause, came on the stage from the wings and joined the dog in bowing.
Villa and Harley sat in silence for a moment. Then Villa said, apropos
of nothing:

"I have been sitting here and feeling very grateful for one particular
thing."

He waited.

"It is that we are so abominably wealthy," she concluded.

"Which means that you want the dog, must have him, and are going to got
him, just because I can afford to do it for you," he teased.

"Because you can't afford not to," she a