No sooner had Mr. Dearly put the telephone down than the Splendid Vet rang up to say he had not been able to find a foster mother. Neither had Mrs. Dearly, anywhere in London. She now started to ring up Lost Dogs’Homes outside London. It was late afternoon before she heard of a mother dog with some milk to give, nearly thirty miles from London. And this dog had only just been brought in and would have to be kept some days in case she was claimed.

Mr. Dearly put his head out of the cupboard. After being up all night and feeding pups all day, he was beginning to feel pretty tired, but he was determined to go on helping Missis until the foster mother arrived. Why not go and see if you can borrow that dog?€ he said. Say we’ll give it back if its owner turns up.€

So Mrs. Dearly got the car from the old stable at the back of the house and drove off hopefully. But when she got to the Dogs’Home she found that the mother dog had already been claimed. She was glad for the dog’s sake, but terribly disappointed. She thought of poor Missis getting exhausted by too many puppies, and of Mr. Dearly, who might easily refuse to come out of the cupboard for a good night’s sleep, and she began to think she never would find a foster mother.

It was now almost dark, a gloomy, wet October evening. It had been raining all afternoon, but Mrs. Dearly hadn’t minded when she was feeling hopeful. Now, as she started back for London, the weather made her feel more and more depressed. And the rain got so heavy that the windscreen-wiper could hardly keep pace with it.

She was driving across a lonely stretch of common when she saw what looked like a bundle lying in the road ahead of her. She slowed down, and as she drew closer she saw that it was not a bundle but a dog. Instantly she thought it must have been run over. Dreading what she might find, she stopped the car and got out.

At first she thought the dog was dead, but as she bent down it struggled to its feet, showing no signs of injury. It was so plastered with mud that she could not see what kind of dog it was. What she could see, by the light from the car’s headlights, was the poor creature’s pitiful thinness. She spoke to it gently. Its drooping tail gave a feeble flick, then drooped again.

I can’t leave it here,€ thought Mrs. Dearly. Even if it hasn’t been run over, it must be near starvation. Oh, dear! With seventeen dogs at home already, she had no wish to take back a stray, but she knew she would never bring herself just to hand this poor thing in at a police station.