once; it seemed funny. I hardly recognized
myself in the part. I certainly seemed to be 'going some'," he murmured
seriously. "Is there anything else, Madam, you would care to question me
about?"

"I think," she said significantly, "what I have learned is quite
sufficient. If the occupations you have told me about are so
disreputable--what were those you have kept so carefully concealed? For
example, where were you and what were you doing four--five--six--years
ago? You have already refused to answer. You relate only a few
inconsequential and outre trifles. To cover up--What? What?" she
repeated.

Then she transfixed him with her eye; the dogs transfixed him with their
eyes. Accusingly? Not all of them. Naughty's glance expressed approval;
his tail underwent a friendly agitation.

"Naughty!" said the lady sharply. Naughty gamboled around Horatio.

"How odd!" murmured the mistress, more to herself than the other. "How
very extraordinary!"

"What, Madam?" he ventured.

"That Naughty, who so seldom takes to strangers, should--" she found
herself saying.

"Perhaps it's the scent of the gasolene," he suggested.

"It's _in spite of_ the gasolene," she retorted sharply.

And for some moments ruminated. It was not until afterward Mr.
Heatherbloom learned that her confidence in Naughty's instinct amounted
to a hobby. Only once had she thought him at fault in his likes or
dislikes of people; when he had showed a predilection for the assistant
rector's shapely calves. But after that gentleman's elopement with a
lady of the choir and his desertion of wife and children, Naughty's
erstwhile disrespect for the cloth, which Miss Van Rolsen had grieved
over, became illumined with force and significance. Thereafter she had
never doubted him; he had barked at all twelve of Mr. Heatherbloom's
predecessors--the dozen other answers to the advertisement; but here he
was sedulous for fondlings from Horatio. Extraordinary truly! The lady
hesitated.

"I suppose we shall all be murdered in our beds," she said half to
herself, "but," with sudden decision, "I've concluded to engage you."

"And my duties?" ventured Mr. Heatherbloom. "The advertisement did not
say."

"You are to exercise the darlings every day in the park."

"Ah!" Horatio's exclamation was noncommittal. What he might have added
was interrupted by a light footstep in the hall and the voice of some
one who stopped in passing before the door.

"I am going now, Aunt,"