the modest
local operators' raids on ash-can and laundry.
It is the easiest thing in the world to stir humankind's ever-tense
burglar-nerves into hysterical jangling. In house after house, for
miles of the peaceful North Jersey region, old pistols were cleaned and
loaded; window fastenings and doorlocks were inspected and new
hiding-places found for portable family treasures.
Across the lake from the village, and down the Valley from a dozen
country homes, seeped the tide of precautions. And it swirled at last
around the Place,--a thirty-acre homestead, isolated and sweet, whose
grounds ran from highway to lake; and whose wistaria-clad gray house
drowsed among big oaks midway between road and water; a furlong or more
distant from either.
The Place's family dog,--a pointer,--had died, rich in years and honor.
And the new peril of burglary made it highly needful to choose a
successor for him.
The Master talked of buying a whalebone-and-steel-and-snow bull
terrier, or a more formidable if more greedy Great Dane. But the
Mistress wanted a collie. So they compromised by getting the collie.
He reached the Place in a crampy and smelly crate; preceded by a long
envelope containing an intricate and imposing pedigree. The
burglary-preventing problem seemed solved.
But when the crate was opened and its occupant stepped gravely forth,
on the Place's veranda, the problem was revived.
All the Master and the Mistress had known about the newcomer,--apart
from his price and lofty lineage,--was that his breeder had named him
"Lad."
From these meager facts they had somehow built up a picture of a huge
and grimly ferocious animal that should be a terror to all intruders
and that might in time be induced to make friends with the Place's
vouched-for occupants. In view of this, they had had a stout kennel
made and to it they had affixed with double staples a chain strong
enough to restrain a bull.
(It may as well be said here that never in all the sixteen years of his
beautiful life did Lad occupy that or any other kennel nor wear that or
any other chain.)
Even the crate which brought the new dog to the Place failed somehow to
destroy the illusion of size and fierceness. But, the moment the crate
door was opened the delusion was wrecked by Lad himself.
Out on to the porch he walked. The ramshackle crate behind him had a
ridiculous air of a chrysalis from which some bright thing had
departed. For a shaft of sunlight w
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