Gloria Garton said, “Oh.” By that one sound she managed to convey that she sympathized deeply, that the trainer was a nice-looking young man whom she’d just as soon see again, and that no dog star was going to steal Fangs of the Forest from her. She adjusted her skirt slightly, leaned back, and made the plain wooden chair on the bare theater stage seem more than ever like a throne.
“All right.” The man in the violet beret waved away the last unsuccessful applicant and read from a card: “ ‘Dog: Wopsy. Owner: Mrs. Channing Galbraith. Trainer: Luther Newby.’ Bring it in.”
An assistant scurried offstage, and there was a sound of whines and whimpers as a door opened.
“What’s got into those dogs today?” the man in the violet beret demanded. “They all seem scared to death and beyond.”
“I think,” said Fergus O’Breen, “that it’s that big gray wolf dog. Somehow, the others just don’t like him.”
Gloria Garton lowered her bepurpled lids and cast a queenly stare of suspicion on the young detective. There was nothing wrong with his being there. His sister was head of publicity for Metropolis, and he’d handled several confidential cases for the studio; even one for her, that time her chauffeur had decided to try his hand at blackmail. Fergus O’Breen was a Metropolis fixture; but still it bothered her.
The assistant brought in Mrs. Galbraith’s Wopsy. The man in the violet beret took one look and screamed. The scream bounced back from every wall of the theater in the ensuing minute of silence. At last he found words. “A wolf dog! Tookah is the greatest role ever written for a wolf dog! And what do they bring us? A terrier, yet! So if we wanted a terrier we could cast Asta!”
“But if you’d only let us show you—’’Wopsy’s tall young trainer started to protest.
“Get out!” the man in the violet beret shrieked. “Get out before I lose my temper!”
Wopsy and her trainer slunk off.
“In El Paso,” the casting director lamented, “they bring me a Mexican hairless. In St. Louis it’s a Pekinese yet! And if I do find a wolf dog, it sits in a corner and waits for somebody to bring it a sled to pull.”
“Maybe,” said Fergus, “you should try a real wolf.”
“Wolf, schmolf. We’ll end up wrapping John Barrymore in a wolfskin.” He picked up the next card. “ ‘Dog: Yoggoth. Owner and trainer: Mr. O. Z. Manders.’ Bring it in.”
The whining noise offstage ceased as Yoggoth was brought out to be tested. The man in the violet beret hardly glanced at the fringe-bearded owner and trainer. He had eyes only for that splendid gray wolf. “If you can only act . . .” he prayed, with the same fervor with which many a man has thought, If you could only cook . . .
He pulled the beret to an even more unlikely angle and snapped, “All right, Mr. Manders. The dog should come into the room, give one paw to the baby, indicate that he recognizes the hero in his Eskimo disguise, go over to the table, find the bone, and clap his paws joyfully. Baby here, hero here, table here. Got that?”
Mr. Manders looked at his wolf dog and repeated, “Got that?”
Yoggoth wagged his tail.
“Very well, colleague,” said Mr. Manders. “Do it.”
Yoggoth did it.
The violet beret sailed into the flies, on the wings of its owner’s triumphal scream of joy. “He did it!” he kept burbling. “He did it!”
“Of course, colleague,” said Mr. Manders calmly.
The trainer who hated Pluto had a face as blank as a vampire’s mirror. Fergus O’Breen was speechless with wonderment. Even Gloria Garton permitted surprise and interest to cross her regal mask.
“You mean he can do anything?” gurgled the man who used to have a violet beret.
“Anything,” said Mr. Manders.
“Can he— Let’s see, in the dance-hall sequence . . . can he knock a man down, roll him over, and frisk his back pocket?”
Even before Mr. Manders could say “Of course,” Yoggoth had demonstrated, using Fergus O’Breen as a convenient dummy.
“Peace!” the casting director sighed. “Peace . . . Charley!” he yelled to his assistant. “Send ’em all away. No more tryouts. We’ve found Tookah! It’s wonderful.”
The trainer stepped up to Mr. Manders. “It’s more than that, sir. It’s positively superhuman. I’ll swear I couldn’t detect the slightest signal, and for such complicated operations, too. Tell me, Mr. Manders, what system do you use?”
Mr. Manders made a Hoople-ish kaff-kaffnoise. “Professional secret, you understand, young man. I’m planning on opening a school when I retire, but obviously until then—”
“Of course, sir. I understand. But I’ve never seen anything like it in all my born days.”
“I wonder,” Fergus O’Breen observed abstractly from the floor, “if your marvel dog can get off of people, too?”
Mr. Manders stifled a grin. “Of course! Yoggoth!”
Fergus picked himself up and dusted from his clothes the grime of the stage, which is the most clinging grime on earth. “I’d swear,” he muttered, “that beast of yours enjoyed that.”
“No hard feelings, I trust, Mr.—”
“O’Breen. None at all. In fact, I’d suggest a little celebration in honor of this great event. I know you can’t buy a drink this near the campus, so I brought along a bottle just in case.”
“Oh,” said Gloria Garton, implying that carousals were ordinarily beneath her; that this, however, was a special occasion; and that possibly there was something to be said for the green-eyed detective after all.
This was all too easy, Wolfe Wolf—Yoggoth kept thinking. There was a catch to it somewhere. This was certainly the ideal solution to the problem of how to earn money as a werewolf. Bring an understanding of human speech and
