e wave of his master's handkerchief on toes as springily
supple as those of any ballerina. For the admiration of the judge and
his attendants, the Moorish hound performed miracles of sinuous agility.
With the size of a deerhound the Moor combined the delicate graces of an
Italian greyhound.

Jan offered no parlor tricks. Indeed, in these last minutes his young
limbs wearied somewhat--the morning had been one of most exceptional
stress and excitement for him--and while the other three were being
passed in a final review, Jan lay down at full length on his belly in
the ring, his muzzle outstretched upon his paws, neck slightly arched,
crown high and nose very low--a pose he inherited from his distinguished
mother, and in part, it may be, from his paternal grandam, old Tara, who
loved to lie that way. The position was so beautiful, so characteristic,
and so full of breeding that, rather to Betty's consternation, the
Master refrained from disturbing it, unorthodox though such behavior
might be in a judging ring. The Master nodded reassuringly to anxious
Betty, and, after all, he knew even when the judge paced slowly forward,
pencil in mouth, Jan was not disturbed.

"I suppose he's hardly done furnishing yet?" asked the judge.

"No, he still has, perhaps, half a year for that; four months, anyhow,"
replied the Master. "He is only twenty months, and weighs just on a
hundred and fifty pounds."

"Does he indeed? A hundred and fifty. Now, I put him down as twenty
pounds less than that."

"A tribute to his symmetry, sir," said the Master, with a smile.

"Ye--es, to be sure. May I see him on the scale?"

So Jan was carefully weighed by the judge himself, and scaled one
hundred and forty-eight and one-half pounds. And then he was carefully
measured for height--at the shoulder-bone--and touched the standard at a
fraction over thirty-two and one-half inches.

"Re--markable," said the judge; "especially in the weight. He certainly
is finely proportioned. Would you mind just running him across the ring
as quickly as you can?"

The owners of the other three dogs wore during this time an expression
of inhuman selflessness of superhumanly kind interest in Jan and his
doings.

"It's a thousand pities he's so very coarse," murmured one disinterested
admirer, the owner of the Welsh terrier. A moment later the Master had
to hide a smile as he heard the owner of the bulldog whisper: "Nice
beast. Pity he's so weedy. A little less on