that’s right!” Blackie said. “I hadn’t thought of that. We didn’t even hear a growl out of him inside the house all that time! Sput certainly wouldn’t have gone off quietly with anyone who just came along and unhooked him. Maybe he did get loose by himself.”
A small blond boy who had been one of the Spadina Gang’s raiding party pushed himself through to the front of the group now and spoke up.
“If they were both loose,” he said, “wandering about in the street, or even just sitting out in the street by themselves, the Humane Society could have picked them up. That happened to our dog once. It’s what they call ‘running at large.’ You can get fined fifty dollars for letting your dog do that. The man at the Humane Society told us.”
“What, just for letting it sit outside your own house?” Red said scornfully. “You’re crazy. That’s only if they’re running about loose in the streets. You can’t get fined fifty dollars for letting your dog sit outside its own house!”
“You can so!” the small boy said indignantly. “The man told us. The rule doesn’t mean that your dog actually has to be running about in the street at all! It just means if the dog is out in the street, without anyone in charge of it!”
“What happened about your dog, then?” Red’s Sister said, speaking to the boy gently, as her brother turned away from him. “Did you get fined fifty dollars?”
“No, but the man told us that that was what could happen, so that we wouldn’t let our dog go out in the street by himself again. He said the law was made because a stray dog might bite someone, or kill chickens, or something like that. That’s why they have to be so strict. The Humane Society has a dog-catcher going round the city all the time to pick up stray dogs. That’s what happened to ours.”
“Well, what happened to him after that?” the Professor said, getting interested. “How did you find out where he was and get him back?”
“My father went down to the Humane Society as soon as we found out he was missing,” the blond boy said. “Their truck had just brought him in and we got him back.”
The Professor shook his head. “Gee, I don’t know,” he said doubtfully. “I guess this could be what happened. No one saw what happened. If they were wandering about in the street, I suppose the dog-catcher could have picked them both up. We all live in pretty much the same part of town. He could have been driving around in this area tonight.” He looked at Blackie inquiringly.
Blackie shook his head too. “I still don’t see how Sput could have got off his leash in the first place,” he said. “Unless maybe some stupid kid went by first and let him loose for a joke, and then the dog-catcher came round afterwards. . . . It’s possible, I guess.”
The leader of the Spadina Gang nodded thoughtfully. “I guess it is, at that,” he said.
But the little blond boy hadn’t finished yet. Now he spoke up again. “Well, if the dog-catcher has got the dogs,” he said, “you’d better hurry up and get them back again. Otherwise the Humane Society might electrocute them.”
Several of the kids who were standing around laughed at this, and Red said indignantly, “Are you nuts?” He turned to the others. “I tell you, this kid is nuts! Who let him in here anyway? Throw him out!”
The small blond boy got very red in the face at this and clenched his fists, as if he were going to take a swing at Red. This made everyone laugh even louder, because Red was about a foot taller and thirty pounds heavier.
It was Red’s Sister who came to the small boy’s rescue again and spoke to him kindly.
“Let him tell what he knows,” she said, looking around. “You’re not so smart, the rest of you. What do you mean, kid, they might electrocute them?”
“Well,” he said, “when we got our dog back, the man told us all about the Humane Society, and what they do is, if they find a stray dog and nobody comes to claim it, they try to sell it. But if they can’t sell it, they have to get rid of it, because they can’t afford to keep all the dogs that get lost. So they electrocute it.”
“You mean in the electric chair, like a gangster?” Red said, laughing out loud. “You’re nuts, kid. You really are, honest!”
“Say, can’t you see the big headlines?” Fatty said, joining in the mockery. “Big Buster Goes to Chair. Brutal Baby-Biter Burns!”
Everybody started laughing and jeering at the small boy again, and he got so angry and so upset that his eyes filled with tears. He could hardly keep himself from crying.
“You wait and see, that’s all!” he shouted. “If you don’t go down and get your dogs, you wait and see what happens!”
Now the room was in an uproar, with everyone laughing and shouting and talking at once, making jokes about the ridiculous idea that dogs could go to the electric chair, like gangsters.
The Professor’s voice suddenly cut across the noise, shouting for silence.
“Quiet!” he shouted. “Quiet! Have you all gone nuts or something? This isn’t getting us anywhere. You all seem to have forgotten what we’re supposed to be worrying about already! Let’s get organized, for Pete’s sake! If there’s some chance that Sput and Buster are down at the Humane Society, let’s go down there and see. We don’t know what else to do, and it’s certainly no good standing around here, laughing and shouting at each other. Come on. Who’s coming down to the Humane Society with me?”
“I will,” the leader of the Spadina Gang said loudly.
“So will I,” Red’s Sister said, and in a minute everyone else in the room was shouting their agreement and streaming out of the basement of the empty house, heading for the Humane Society.
The only trouble was that when the first group reached the sidewalk, they suddenly realized that they didn’t have the least idea where the Humane Society was, or whether it would still be open at that time of night. Immediately another racket started up, as everyone began asking everyone else if they knew where they were going, and giving contradictory directions about how to get there.
It was only when the leaders of the two gangs reached the sidewalk, with the Professor leading the small blond boy firmly by the arm, that any kind of order was restored.
“It’s at number 11 Wellesley Street West,” the Professor said. “Blondie here says it’s open twenty-four hours a day. Everyone know how to get there?”
Several people said they didn’t, so he gave them clear directions.
“Gee, these kids are a rabble if they’re not properly organized,” he said to the leader of the Spadina Gang, as the crowd went streaming off again in the direction he pointed out. “It’s taken me months to get my gang to follow any kind of discipline. I guess you have the same kind of trouble?” He paused, as the leader of the Spadina Gang nodded, and then went on, watching the other boy carefully. “You know, I’ve been thinking—oh, by the way, my name’s Tony Felucci. Everyone calls me the Professor.”
He held out his hand, and the other boy shook it. “I’m Kingston Elliott,” he said. “Just call me King.”
“Okay, King,” the Professor said as they went on walking. “Well,
