Snapping his fingers, to summon Lad to his side, he patted the dog's silken head; and strove not to laugh.
"And just as we was sitting down, peaceful, to eat, and not harming no one at all and minding our own business," came a fragment of one man's oration, above the clamor of the others, "that big dark-sable collie of yours came tearing down on us and--" The triple opposition of outcry and complaint blurred the rest of his enraged whine.

But the Master looked out at him in new interest.

The man had used the term, "dark-sable collie"; which, by the way, was the technical phrase for Lad's coloring.

Not one non-collie-man in a thousand would have known the meaning of the term; to say nothing of using it by instinct.

The Master stared curiously at the floundering and sputtering speaker.
"Aren't you the manager of the Lochaber Collie Kennels, up at Beauville ?" he asked, speaking loud enough to be heard above the subsiding din.