“Please take your measly St. Bernard monstrosity out of the ring.  This is a class for collies, not for freaks.  I refuse to judge that pup as a collie.”

“He’s a thoroughbred,” crossly protested the Master.  “I have his certified pedigree.  There’s no better blood in—­”

“I don’t care what his ancestors were,” snapped the judge.  “He’s a throw-back to the dinosaur or the Great Auk.  And I won’t judge him as a collie.  Take him out of the ring.  You’re delaying the others.”

A judge’s decision is final.  Red with angry shame and suppressing an unworthy desire to kick the luckless Bruce, the Master led the pup back to his allotted bench.  Bruce trotted cheerily along with a maddening air of having done something to be proud of.  Deaf to the Mistress’s sympathy and to her timidly voiced protests, the Master scrawled on an envelope-back the words “For Sale.  Name Your Own Price,” and pinned it on the edge of the bench.

“Here endeth the first lesson in collie-raising, so far as The Place is concerned,” he decreed, stalking back to the ringside to watch the rest of the judging.

The Mistress lingered behind, to bestow a furtive consolatory pat upon the disqualified Bruce.  Then she joined her husband beside the ring.

It was probably by accident that her skirt brushed sharply against the bench-edge as she went—­knocking the “For Sale” sign down into the litter of straw below.

But a well-meaning fellow-exhibitor, across the aisle, saw the bit of paper flutter floorward.  This good soul rescued it from the straw and pinned it back in place.

(The world is full of helpful folk.  That is perhaps one reason why the Millennium’s date is still so indefinite.)

An hour later, a man touched the Master on the arm.

“That dog of yours, on Bench 48,” began the stranger, “the big pup with the ‘For Sale’ sign on his bench.  What do you want for him?”

The Mistress was several feet away, talking to the superintendent of the show.  Guiltily, yet gratefully, the Master led the would-be purchaser back to the benches, without attracting his wife’s notice.

A few minutes afterward he returned to where she and the superintendent were chatting.

“Well,” said the Master, trying to steel himself against his wife’s possible disappointment, “I found a buyer for Bruce—­a Dr. Halding, from New York.  He likes the pup.  Says Bruce looks as if he was strong and had lots of endurance.  I wonder if he wants him for a sledge-dog.  He paid me fifteen dollars for him; and it was a mighty good bargain.  I was lucky to get more than a nickel for such a cur.”

The Master shot forth this speech in almost a single rapid breath.  Then, before his wife could reply,—­and without daring to look into her troubled eyes,—­he discovered an acquaintance on the far side of the ring and bustled off to speak to him.  The Master, you see, was a husband, not a hero.