l me all the jokes."

And then Caldegard and Dick Bellamy came down the stairs together.

"What have you been doing to Gorgon?" asked Amaryllis.

"Never mind the dog," said her father. "It's what this 'vaudeville
artist' has been doing to me!"

"Oh, Gorgon, Gorgon! If those lips could only speak!" laughed the girl.
"Don't you think Gorgon's a good name for the ugly darling, Mr.
Bellamy?" she said, as they went in to dinner.

"Surely the Gorgon was a kind of prehistoric suffragette," objected
Dick.

"There you are, Amy," said her father, and turned to him. "Your brother
and I have quite failed to convince my illiterate daughter that the word
_Gorgon_ is of the feminine gender."

"Anyhow," said Amaryllis defiantly, as she took her seat at the
dinner-table, "I looked it up in the dictionary, and all it said was: A
monster of fearful aspect.'"

"He deserves it," said Dick.

"He seems to have taken a great fancy to you, Mr. Bellamy," said the
girl.

"Dogs always do," said Randal.

"Always at the first meeting?" asked Amaryllis.

"Nearly always. But that doesn't prove that I don't travel without a
ticket when I get the chance," replied Dick.

"What _do_ you mean?" asked the girl.

"Oh, the dog-and-baby theory's not dead yet. But I assure you, Miss
Caldegard, that the hardest case I ever met couldn't walk through a town
without collecting every dog in the place. That's why he never succeeded
in his first profession."

"What was he?" asked the girl.

"Burglar," said Dick.

"That's all very well," said his brother. "I know nothing about babies,
but I've noticed that the man whom all dogs dislike is no good at all."

"That's quite true," said Caldegard. "Remember Melchard, Amy?"

Dick Bellamy caught the quiver of disgust which passed over the girl's
face before she answered.

"Horrible person!" she said. "Trixy bit him, the dachshund next door
always ran away from him, and Gorgon had to be chained up."

"Who is this Melchard, Caldegard?" asked Randal.

"He came to me about eighteen months ago, and stayed about nine; a very
capable practical chemist; had worked for some time in the factory of a
Dutch rubber company. Sumatra, I think, or the Malay Peninsula. Tried
unqualified dentistry after he came home, went broke and got an
introduction to me. That's what he told me. An accurate and painstaking
worker, and never asked questions."

Dick began to be interested.

"But I really can't see anything horr