ints out how a brute
dog with such destructive instincts would go on and on, chewin' up first
one valuable thing and then another, until we'd have nothing left but
what we had on.

Buddy had been tried and found guilty in the first degree. Sentence had
been passed. He must go.

"Perhaps your barber friend will take him back," says Vee. "Or the
Ellinses might want him. Anyway, he's impossible. You must get rid of
him tonight. Only I don't wish to know how, or what becomes of him."

"Very well," says I, "if that's the verdict."

I loads Buddy ostentatious into the little roadster and starts off, with
him wantin' to sit all over me as usual, or else drapin' himself on the
door half-way out of the car. Maybe I stopped at Joe Sarello's, maybe I
only called at the butcher's and collected a big, juicy shin-bone.
Anyway, it was' after dark when I got back and when I came in to dinner
I was alone.

The table chat that evenin' wasn't quite as lively as it generally is.
And after we'd been sitting around in the livin' room an hour or so with
everything quiet, Vee suddenly lets loose with a sigh, which is a new
stunt for her. She ain't the sighin' kind. But there's no mistake about
this one.

"Eh?" says I, lookin' up.

"I--I hope you found him a good home," says she.

"Oh!" says I. "The impossible beast? Probably as good as he deserves."

Then we sat a while longer.

"Little Richard was getting very fond of him," Vee breaks out again.

"Uh-huh," says I.

We went upstairs earlier than usual. There wasn't so much to do about
gettin' ready--no givin' Buddy a last run outside, or makin' him shake a
good night with his paw, or seein' that he had water in his dish.
Nothing but turnin' out the lights. Once, long after Vee should have
been asleep. I thought I heard her snifflin', but I dozed off again
without makin' any remark.

I must have been sawin' wood good and hard, too, when I wakes up to find
her shakin' me by the shoulder.

"Listen, Torchy," she's sayin'. "Isn't that Buddy's bark?"

"Eh? Buddy?" says I. "How could it be?"

"But it is!" she insists. "It's coming from the garage, too."

"Well, that's odd," says I. "Maybe I'd better go out and see."

I was puzzled all right, in spite of the fact that I'd left him there
with his bone and had made Dominick promise to stick around and quiet
him if he began yelpin'. But this wasn't the way Buddy generally barked
when he was indignant. He was lettin' 'em out short a