nd you might
brandish your arms in any way you chose before old Tara or
Kathleen, and, while the one would have blinked at you with
courteous tolerance of your foolishness, the other would have
suspected you of inventing a new game, and gambolled before you
like a huge kitten.

It was not, of course, that Finn was foolish enough to distrust the
Master, or suspect him of any hostile intention. But certain
instincts had been awakened in the young Wolfhound, and, for a long
time, at all events, and probably for the rest of his life, those
instincts would not again become latent. In some respects he may
have been the better off; certainly he was better equipped to face
the world; but the Master, naturally enough, could not withhold a
sigh for the old utter trustfulness which had held even the
instincts of self-preservation in abeyance. But, as has been said,
Finn was better equipped to face the world than either his sister,
or that gentle great lady, his mother; all his instincts were more
alert, and his senses also. His eyes moved more rapidly than their
eyes; his attitude toward life and toward men-folk was more elastic
and less absolute. Men-folk remained his superiors in Finn's eyes,
his superiors in a hundred ways, and it might be his dearly loved
friends; but they were not any more the absolute, omnipotent, and
all-perfect gods that they had been, and still were to Kathleen,
for example, who would not have felt the slightest uneasiness if
the Master had placed his heel on her throat, or touched her head
with a club, as she lay on the ground before him.

To a great extent, however, the Master's sympathetic anger over
Finn's wounds, and twinges of regret regarding the subtle changes
which he recognised in the hound he affectionately called "son,"
were out-balanced by the joy he felt at seeing Finn safe in his den
again. The loss of Finn had been hard to bear, and not the less
hard because it came immediately after the great triumph of the
Show. There were the seven prize cards adorning the wall over
Tara's great bed in the den; but their presence had been something
of a mockery in the absence of their winner. When the Master and
the Mistress finally bade Finn good night, after making him
thoroughly comfortable in his own clean, big bed, the coach-house
door was carefully padlocked.

It could not have been said a month later that Finn was physically
the worse for his adventure in the hands of Matey. His ribs were
s