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“It does not!” says “Mr. Wyndham, sir,” short-like.

“Aren’t you sure, Nolan?” says Miss Dorothy.

“No, Miss,” says the Master.

“Sire unknown,” says “Mr. Wyndham, sir,” and writes it down.

“Date of birth?” asks “Mr. Wyndham, sir.”

“I–I–unknown, sir,” says Nolan. And “Mr. Wyndham, sir,” writes it down.

“Breeder?” says “Mr. Wyndham, sir.”

“Unknown,” says Nolan, getting very red around the jaws, and I drops my head and tail. And “Mr. Wyndham, sir,” writes that down.

“Mother’s name?” says “Mr. Wyndham, sir.”

“She was a–unknown,” says the Master. And I licks his hand.

“Dam unknown,” says “Mr. Wyndham, sir,” and writes it down. Then he takes the paper and reads out loud: “Sire unknown, dam unknown, breeder unknown, date of birth unknown. You’d better call him the ‘Great Unknown,'” says he. “Who’s paying his entrance-fee?”

“I am,” says Miss Dorothy.

Two weeks after we all got on a train for New York; Jimmy Jocks and me following Nolan in the smoking-car, and twenty-two of the St. Bernards, in boxes and crates, and on chains and leashes. Such a barking and howling I never did hear, and when they sees me going, too, they laughs fit to kill.

“Wot is this; a circus?” says the railroad-man.

But I had no heart in it. I hated to go. I knew I was no “show” dog, even though Miss Dorothy and the Master did their best to keep me from shaming them. For before we set out Miss Dorothy brings a man from town who scrubbed and rubbed me, and sand-papered my tail, which hurt most awful, and shaved my ears with the Master’s razor, so you could most see clear through ’em, and sprinkles me over with pipe- clay, till I shines like a Tommy’s cross-belts.

“Upon my word!” says Jimmy Jocks when he first sees me. “What a swell you are! You’re the image of your grand-dad when he made his debut at the Crystal Palace. He took four firsts and three specials.” But I knew he was only trying to throw heart into me. They might scrub, and they might rub, and they might pipe-clay, but they couldn’t pipe-clay the insides of me, and they was black-and-tan.

Then we came to a Garden, which it was not, but the biggest hall in the world. Inside there was lines of benches, a few miles long, and on them sat every dog in the world. If all the dog-snatchers in Montreal had worked night and day for a year, they couldn’t have caught so many dogs. And they was all shouting and barking and howling so vicious, that my heart stopped beating. For at first I thought they was all enraged at my presuming to intrude, but after I got in my place, they kept at it just the same, barking at every dog as he come in; daring him to fight, and ordering him out, and asking him what breed of dog he thought he was, anyway. Jimmy Jocks was chained just behind me, and he said he never see so fine a show. “That’s a hot class you’re in, my lad,” he says, looking over into my street, where there were thirty bull-terriers. They was all as white as cream, and each so beautiful that if I could have broke my chain, I would have run all the way home and hid myself under the horse- trough.

All night long they talked and sang, and passed greetings with old pals, and the home-sick puppies howled dismal. Them that couldn’t sleep wouldn’t let no others sleep, and all the electric lights burned in the roof, and in my eyes. I could hear Jimmy Jocks snoring peaceful, but I could only doze by jerks, and when I dozed I dreamed horrible. All the dogs in the hall seemed coming at me for daring to intrude, with their jaws red and open, and their eyes blazing like the lights in the roof. “You’re a street-dog! Get out, you street- dog!” they yells. And as they drives me out, the pipe-clay drops off me, and they laugh and shriek; and when I looks down I see that I have turned into a black-and-tan.