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“Oh, what a picture,” cried Miss Dorothy; “he’s like a marble figure by a great artist–one who loved dogs. Who is he?” says she, looking in her book. “I don’t keep up with terriers.”

“Oh, you know him,” says the gentleman. “He is the Champion of champions, Regent Royal.”

The Master’s face went red.

“And this is Regent Royal’s son,” cries he, and he pulls me quick into the ring, and plants me on the platform next my father.

I trembled so that I near fall. My legs twisted like a leash. But my father he never looked at me. He only smiled, the same sleepy smile, and he still keep his eyes half-shut, like as no one, no, not even his son, was worth his lookin’ at.

The Judge, he didn’t let me stay beside my father, but, one by one, he placed the other dogs next to him and measured and felt and pulled at them. And each one he put down, but he never put my father down. And then he comes over and picks up me and sets me back on the platform, shoulder to shoulder with the Champion Regent Royal, and goes down on his knees, and looks into our eyes.

The gentleman with my father, he laughs, and says to the Judge, “Thinking of keeping us here all day. John?” but the Judge, he doesn’t hear him, and goes behind us and runs his hand down my side, and holds back my ears, and takes my jaws between his fingers. The crowd around the ring is very deep now, and nobody says nothing. The gentleman at the score-table, he is leaning forward, with his elbows on his knees, and his eyes very wide, and the gentleman at the gate is whispering quick to Miss Dorothy, who has turned white. I stood as stiff as stone. I didn’t even breathe. But out of the corner of my eye I could see my father licking his pink chops, and yawning just a little, like he was bored.

The Judge, he had stopped looking fierce, and was looking solemn. Something inside him seemed a troubling him awful. The more he stares at us now, the more solemn he gets, and when he touches us he does it gentle, like he was patting us. For a long time he kneels in the sawdust, looking at my father and at me, and no one around the ring says nothing to nobody.

Then the Judge takes a breath and touches me sudden. “It’s his,” he says, but he lays his hand just as quick on my father. “I’m sorry,” says he.

The gentleman holding my father cries:

“Do you mean to tell me–“

And the Judge, he answers, “I mean the other is the better dog.” He takes my father’s head between his hands and looks down at him, most sorrowful. “The King is dead,” says he, “long live the King. Good-by, Regent,” he says.

The crowd around the railings clapped their hands, and some laughed scornful, and everyone talks fast, and I start for the gate so dizzy that I can’t see my way. But my father pushes in front of me, walking very daintily, and smiling sleepy, same as he had just been waked, with his head high, and his eyes shut, looking at nobody.

So that is how I “came by my inheritance,” as Miss Dorothy calls it, and just for that, though I couldn’t feel where I was any different, the crowd follows me to my bench, and pats me, and coos at me, like I was a baby in a baby-carriage. And the handlers have to hold ’em back so that the gentlemen from the papers can make pictures of me, and Nolan walks me up and down so proud, and the men shakes their heads and says, “He certainly is the true type, he is!” And the pretty ladies asks Miss Dorothy, who sits beside me letting me lick her gloves to show the crowd what friends we is, “Aren’t you afraid he’ll bite you?” and Jimmy Jocks calls to me, “Didn’t I tell you so! I always knew you were one of us. Blood will out, Kid, blood will out. I saw your grandfather,” says he, “make his debut at the Crystal Palace. But he was never the dog you are!”