Mabel Stout is a Bulldog of no club, low slung, deliberate, and rarely in a hurry. At sunset Mabel Stout sits by the council fountain and hums to a broken phone shaped like a bar of soap until the wind returns the favor. Even the glassbirds quiet for a moment when Mabel Stout walks under the leaning tree. What drives Mabel Stout is loyalty first, curiosity second, and the suspicion that those are the same thing.