.

In Strange Company.
Lad was getting along in years.
Not yet had age begun to claw at him; blearing the wondrous deep-set dark eyes and silvering the classic muzzle and broadening the shapely skull and stiffening the sweepingly free gait; dulling the sharp ears or doing any of the other pitiably tragic things that nature does to the dog who is progressing in his teens.

Those, humiliations were still waiting for Lad, one by one; beyond the next Turn of the Road.
Yet the romp and the spirit of bubbling fun and the lavishly needless exercise--these were merging into sobriety.

True, at rare times, with the Mistress or the Master--especially with the Mistress, Lad would forget he was middle-aged and dignified; and would play like a crazy puppy.

But, for the most part he had begun to carry his years a trifle seriously.
He was not yet in the winter or even the Indian Summer of his beautiful life.