's fun would go
with him. Also, no later than yesterday, the Master had scolded Lad for
barking at a man who had called. Wherefore the dog held his peace.

Getting to his feet and stretching himself, fore and aft, in true
collie fashion, the pup gamboled up the drive to meet the visitor.

The man was feeling his way through the pitch darkness, groping
cautiously; halting once or twice for a smolder of lightning to
silhouette the house he was nearing. In a wooded lane, a quarter mile
away, his lightless motor car waited.

Lad trotted up to him, the tiny white feet noiseless in the soft dust
of the drive. The man did not see him, but passed so close to the dog's
hospitably upthrust nose that he all but touched it.

Only slightly rebuffed at such chill lack of cordiality, Lad fell in
behind him, tail awag, and followed him to the porch. When the guest
should ring the bell, the Master or one of the maids would come to the
door. There would be lights and talk; and perhaps Laddie himself might
be allowed to slip in to his beloved cave.

But the man did not ring. He did not stop at the door at all. On tiptoe
he skirted the veranda to the old-fashioned bay windows at the south
side of the living room; windows with catches as old-fashioned and as
simple to open as themselves.

Lad padded along, a pace or so to the rear;--still hopeful of being
petted or perhaps even romped with. The man gave a faint but promising
sign of intent to romp, by swinging his small and very shiny brown bag
to and fro as he walked. Thus ever did the Master swing Lad's precious
canton flannel doll before throwing it for him to retrieve. Lad made a
tentative snap at the bag, his tail wagging harder than ever. But he
missed it. And, in another moment the man stopped swinging the bag and
tucked it under his arm again as he began to mumble with a bit of steel.

There was the very faintest of clicks. Then, noiselessly the window
slid upward. A second fumbling sent the wooden inside shutters ajar.
The man worked with no uncertainty. Ever since his visit to the Place,
a week earlier, behind the aegis of a big and bright and newly forged
telephone-inspector badge, he had carried in his trained memory the
location of windows and of obstructing furniture and of the primitive
small safe in the living room wall, with its pitifully pickable
lock;--the safe wherein the Place's few bits of valuable jewelry and
other compact treasures reposed at night.

Lad was