ting down and lighting a cigar and trying to look like I was amused and there was nothing she could do or say that would get my goat. And of course I had her there: "Give who back? The owner?" I says.
"You know perfectly well and good what I mean," she says. "And I want you to find the horrid thing's owner at once!"
"Fine!" I says. "Sure! Of course all I've done is to advertise extensively in the Advocate-Times, which only has more circulation than any other two papers in this territory put together—or so they claim, and I've looked into it and I'm disposed to accept their figures," I says. "But of course that isn't enough. All right, I'll just tuck Jackie under my arm, and start right out— Let's see," I says, "there's only about six hundred thousand people in Zenith and the neighboring towns, within perhaps a twenty-eight or thirty mile radius of City Hall, and all I'll have to do will be to run around to each of 'em and say, 'Hey, mister, lost a dog?' That's all I'll have to do."
