panting and hot, with the little one clinging to his neck.

"Excuse me, please," Vic said as he lifted the fallen chair.
"I forgot all about Bug down there, and the widow Bull"--
he gave a half-smile--"was wriggling around trying to find her mate,
and scared him. He's too little to be left alone, anyhow."

Bug was a sturdy, stubby three-year-old, or less, dimpled and brown,
with big dark eyes and a tangle of soft little red-brown ringlets.
As Vic seated himself, Bug perched on the arm of the chair inside
of the big boy's encircling arm.

"Who is your friend? Is he your brother?" asked the Dean.

"No. He's no relation. I don't know anything about him,
except that his name is Buler. Bug Buler, he says."

Little Bug put up a chubby brown hand loving-wise to Vic Burleigh's
brown cheek, and, looking straight at Dr. Fenneben with wide
serious eyes, he asked,

"Is you dood to Vic?"

"Yes, indeed," replied the Dean.

"Nen, I like you fornever," Bug declared, shutting his lips so tightly
that his checks puffed.

"How do you happen to have this child here, Burleigh?" questioned Fenneben.