not to be fed any more,
please."

"Last piece," said Jane. "And he's promised to do Swedish exercises."

Richard was inclined to agree with Mr Murray. The coincidence was again
remarkable; it might even be called very extraordinary. And, given a
choice of two things, Richard preferred to believe the easier. Why, fond
though he was of Zero, he had to admit that the dog was not even clever.

He had tried to teach Zero to find a hidden biscuit, but though he had
hidden the biscuit in all manner of places he had never yet selected a
place that Zero had been able to discover. He was just a dear old fool
of a bulldog, and it was absurd to suppose that he was a miracle.

But Jane Murray remained firm in her belief, and even condescended to be
serious about it.

"Look here," she said, "if you put your horse at a jump, and you're
feeling a bit shy of it yourself, do you mean to say the horse doesn't
know?"

"Of course he knows. But he only knows it by the way you ride him."

"Well, I've had it happen to me. All I can say is that I wasn't
conscious of riding any differently. It was my first season in Ireland,
and I wasn't used to the walls. I said to myself, 'It's got to be.' I
did really mean to get over. But the horse knew the funk in my head and
refused. However, I'll give you another point. How do you explain the
homing instinct of animals?"

"I've never thought about it. I suppose when a pigeon gets up high it
can see no end of a distance."

"That won't do. Dogs and cats have the same instinct--especially cats.
For that matter, crabs have been taken from the sea and returned to it
again at a point eighty miles away, and have found their way back. It's
not done by sight, scent, or hearing. It must be done by some special
sense which they have got and we have not."

"It sounds plausible."

"It's the only possible explanation. And when once we've admitted that
animals have a special sense which we have not, I don't quite see how we
are to say what the limitations of that sense are. It is not really a
bit more wonderful that Zero should have the sense of impending danger
than that a crab, eighty miles from home, should be able to find its way
back."

"Well, you may be right. I wish now that I'd asked that chap Smith a bit
more about the dog."

A few days later one of the partners in Richard's business announced his
intention of getting married. He was a junior partner, two years younger
than Richard.

"Well, B