The fortunate absence of a betting-interest alone keeps such affairs from becoming among the foremost sporting features of the world.  Many of the dogs on view are fools, of course.  Because many of them have been bred solely with a view to show-points.  And their owners and handlers have done nothing to awaken in their exhibits the half-human brain and heart that is a dog’s heritage.  All has been sacrificed to “points”—­to points which are arbitrary and which change as freakily as do fashions in dress.

For example, a few years ago, a financial giant collected and exhibited one of the finest bunches of collies on earth.  He had a competent manager and an army of kennel-men to handle them.  He took inordinate pride in these priceless collies of his.  Once I watched him, at the Garden Show, displaying them to some Wall Street friends.  Three times he made errors in naming his dogs.  Once, when he leaned too close to the star collie of his kennels, the dog mistook him for a stranger and resented the intrusion by snapping at him.  He did not know his own pets, one from another.  And they did not know their owner, by sight or by scent.

At the small shows, there is an atmosphere wholly different.  Few of the big breeders bother to compete at such contests.  The dogs are for the most part pets, for which their owners feel a keen personal affection, and which have been brought up as members of their masters’ households.  Thus, if small shows seldom bring forth a world-beating dog, they at least are full of clever and humanized exhibits and of men and women to whom the success or failure of their canine friends is a matter of intensest personal moment.  Wherefore the small show often gives the beholder something he can find but rarely in a larger exhibition.

A few dogs genuinely enjoy shows—­or are supposed to.  To many others a dogshow is a horror.

Which windy digression brings us back by prosy degrees to Bruce and to the Hampton dogshow.

The collies were the first breed to be judged.  And the puppy class, as usual, was the first to be called to the ring.

There were but three collie pups, all males.  One was a rangy tri-color of eleven months, with a fair head and a bad coat.  The second was an exquisite six-months puppy, rich of coat, prematurely perfect of head, and cowhocked.  These two and Bruce formed the puppy class which paraded before Symonds in the oblong ring.

“Anyhow,” whispered the Mistress as the Master led his stolidly gigantic entry toward the enclosure, “Bruce can’t get worse than a third-prize yellow ribbon.  We ought to be a little proud of that.  There are only three entries in his class.”

But even that bit of barren pride was denied the awkward youngster’s sponsor.  As the three pups entered the enclosure, the judge’s half-shut eyes rested on Bruce—­at first idly, then in real amazement.  Crossing to the Master, before giving the signal for the first maneuvers, he said in tired disgust—­