ough,
if you did but know it, our solvency demands rather that you should
be sold, than paid for in that fashion."

The Mistress nodded thoughtfully.

"But that's quite impossible after this," she said; "selling Finn,
I mean."

The Master smiled. "I suppose it is. That seems to be rather our
way. It's a dead sure thing there can be no selling of Tara, and--I'm
inclined to think you're right about Finn, too. Heavens! If I
could lay my hands on the man who took that chip off his muzzle, I
think I'd run to the length of a ten pounds fine for assault. I'd
get my money's worth, too. The dog has been clubbed; he has been
man-handled; I could swear he has had to fight for his freedom.
Poor old Finn! What a dog! What a Finn it is!"

While the last of these remarks was being made the Master was
carefully examining Finn all over, parting the Wolfhound's dense
hard hair over places in which the skin beneath had been broken,
and pressing his fingers along the lines of different bones and
muscles solicitously. There was a half-spoken oath on the Master's
lips when Finn winced from him as his hand passed down the ribs of
the hound's right side.

"There is a rib broken here," he said to the Mistress, "unless I am
much mistaken. When the post office opens in the morning we must
wire for Turle, the vet. Thieving's bad enough, but--there are some
stupid brutes in this world!"

The Mistress stared.

"Oh, no, I don't mean Finn; nor any of his honest four-legged kind.
I meant two-legged brutes. Finn has been handled more roughly than
an understanding man would handle a tiger. And look at his face.
Look into his eyes. Notice his keenly watchful air, even while I am
handling him. Well, Finn, my son, you have said good-bye to
puppyhood with a vengeance now. Unless I am much mistaken he has
crowded more into the last three days than all the rest of his life
till now had taught him. That dog's years older than Kathleen to-night
in some ways. Do you get the effect I mean? The youth has
gone; there is a certain new hardness. Watch his eye now as I lift
my hand!"

The Master lifted his hand with a sudden jerk, and the two who were
watching Finn's eyes saw that in them which they had never seen in
Kathleen's, nor yet even in Tara's eyes; for neither Tara nor her
daughter had ever pitted their agility against man's brutality.
They had never been clubbed or kicked; they had never seen as far
into the ugly places of human nature as Finn; a