Chapter IV

Miss Clementina looked with dismay at the much battered object the little brown dog had just brought in and laid at her feet. It was all that remained of Mr. Maclin's best Panama hat.

Miss Clementina picked it up gingerly. She crossed the strip of lawn between the two houses and rang her neighbor's doorbell.

"I'm so sorry," she said, extending the hat to its owner. "It's really _too_ bad of the little dog."

"It's of not the very slightest consequence," returned Mr. Maclin, gallantly.

"Oh, but I think it is," Miss Clementina insisted. "He's a very bad little dog, really. Don't you think perhaps you ought to whip him--not hard, but just enough to make him remember?"

"Whip him! Whip your dog! My dear Miss Liddell, I couldn't think of such a thing."

Miss Clementina's eyes seemed very wide indeed.

"But he's not my dog at all," she protested. "Isn't he _yours_, Mr. Maclin?"

"I never laid eyes on him," said Mr. Maclin, "until I moved here. The first time I saw him he was digging in your geranium bed."

"Oh!" said Miss Clementina, and began to laugh.

"And to think," she said, "of all the outrageous things he has done! And neither of us daring to say a word because we each thought he belonged to the other."

Mr. Maclin laughed with her. "I think," he said, "that from now on the little brown dog will have to reform."