since dropped into the habit of giving the collie surreptitious tidbits during the course of a meal. Macduff was wont to accept them gravely, and he never begged.

But to-night, from his post behind Mrs. Mosely’s chair, the ever-hungry police dog[86] caught sight of the tossed morsel. He lumbered forward to grab it. Macduff daintily picked up and swallowed the food, a second before Petty could seize it.

[86]

Angry at loss of the prize and at another dog daring to get ahead of him, Petty launched himself at the unsuspecting collie, driving his teeth into Macduff’s fur-armored neck.

The collie resented this egregious attack by writhing out from under his assailant, wrenching free from the half-averted grip, and flying at the police dog’s throat.

In a flash of time an industrious and rackety dog fight was in progress all over the dining room.

One of the maids screeched. Every one jumped up. A chair was overturned bangingly. Mrs. Mosely shrieked:

“The brute is murdering poor darling Petty! Help!”

Excited past all caution, she dashed between the rearing and roaring combatants just as Thaxton Vail recovered enough presence of mind to shout imperatively to his collie.

At the command Macduff ceased to lay on. Turning reluctantly, he walked back to his master. Joshua Q. Mosely, meantime, had flung[87] his incalculable weight upon the bellicose Petty, pinning the luckless police dog to the floor. The fight was over.

[87]

Mrs. Mosely’s shrill voice, raised in anguish, soared above the hubbub.

“He’s bitten me!” she cried, nursing a bony finger whose knuckle bore a faint abrasion from the glancing eyetooth of one of the warriors. “That wretched collie has bitten me!”

Then it was that Joshua Q. Mosely proved himself a master of men and of situations. Holding the fat police dog by the studded collar, he drew himself to his full height.

“Come up to the room, Luella!” he bade his hysterical wife. “I’ll wash out the cut for you and bind it up nice. If it’s bad, we’ll have a doctor for it. As for you,” he continued, glowering awesomely upon Vail, “you’re just at the first of what you’re going to get 

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