“Impossible,” said Harley.

“It is when the impossible comes true that life proves worth while,” she retorted.  “And this is one of those worth-whiles of impossibles.  I know it.”

Still the man of him said impossible, and still the woman of her insisted that this was an impossible come true.  By this time the dog on the stage was singing “God Save the King.”

“That shows I am right,” Villa contended.  “No American, in America, would teach a dog ‘God Save the King.’  An Englishman originally owned that dog and taught it.  The Solomons are British.”

“That’s a far cry,” he smiled.  “But what gets me is that ear.  I remember it now.  I remember the day when we were on the beach at Tulagi with Jerry, and when his brother came ashore from the Eugenie in a whaleboat.  And his brother had that self-same, loppy, crinkled ear.”

“And more,” Villa argued.  “How many singing dogs have we ever known!  Only one—­Jerry.  Evidently such a type occurs rarely.  The same family would more likely produce similar types than different families.  The family of Terrence and Biddy produced Jerry.  And this is Michael.”

“He was rough-coated, along with a crinkly ear,” Harley meditated back.  “I see him distinctly as he stood up in the bow of the whaleboat and as he ran along the beach side by side with Jerry.”

“If Jerry should to-morrow run side by side with him you would be convinced?” she queried.

“It was their trick, and the trick of Terrence and Biddy before them,” he agreed.  “But it’s a far cry from the Solomons to the United States.”

“Jerry is such a far cry,” she replied.  “And if Jerry won from the Solomons to California, then is there anything more remarkable in Michael so winning?—­Oh, listen!”

For the dog on the stage, now responding to its one encore, was singing “Home, Sweet Home.”  This finished, Jacob Henderson, to tumultuous applause, came on the stage from the wings and joined the dog in bowing.  Villa and Harley sat in silence for a moment.  Then Villa said, apropos of nothing: 

“I have been sitting here and feeling very grateful for one particular thing.”

He waited.

“It is that we are so abominably wealthy,” she concluded.

“Which means that you want the dog, must have him, and are going to got him, just because I can afford to do it for you,” he teased.

“Because you can’t afford not to,” she answered.  “You must know he is Jerry’s brother.  At least, you must have a sneaking suspicion . . . ?”

“I have,” he nodded.  “The thing that can’t sometimes does, and there is a chance that this may be one of those times.  Of course, it isn’t Michael; but, on the other hand, what’s to prevent it from being Michael?  Let us go behind and find out.”

* * * * *