property saved through the courage and pluck of a small dog belonging to
the family." They didn't get that part right, for he didn't belong to us
then. You just wait, and I'll read the whole piece to you. I've got it
somewhere in my pockets. You see, I cut it out of the paper to read to
the boys at school.

"'You'd rather I told you about it? Well. Lie down, Grip! Be quiet!
can't you? He don't mean any thing by sniffing round your ankles in that
way; anyhow, he won't catch hold unless I tell him to; but you see,
ever since that night he wants to go for every strange man or woman that
comes near the place. Liz says "he's got burglars on the brain."

"'I guess I'll begin at the beginning and tell you how I came by him.
One night after school I'd been down to the steamboat landing on an
errand for father, and along on River Street there was a crowd of
loafers round two dogs in a fight. This dog was one of 'em, and the
other was a bulldog twice his size. The bulldog's master was looking on,
without so much as trying to part 'em; but nobody was looking after the
yellow dog: he didn't seem to have any master. Well, I want to see fair
play in every thing. It makes me mad to see a fellow thrash a boy half
his size, or a big dog chew up a little one. So I steps up and says to
the bulldog's master, "Why don't you call off your dog?" but he only
swore at me and told me to mind my own business.

"'Well, I know a trick or two about dogs, and I ran into a grocer's shop
close by and got two cents' worth of snuff, and I let that bulldog have
it all right in his face and eyes. Of course he had to let go to sneeze;
and I grabbed the yellow dog and ran. It was great fun. I could hear
that dog sneezing and coughing, and his master yelling to me, but I
never once held up or looked behind me till I was half-way up Brooks