the coal-bin, where I remained until he fell asleep in a distant corner about four hours later, I should certainly have been torn to pieces.  We thought we would have to try to get along with out using the cellar until Butterwick could come up and take away his dog.  But Butterwick wrote to say that he couldn’t come, and the dog, after eating everything in the cellar and barking all through every night, finally bolted up stairs into the kitchen on the 2d of July, and established himself in the back yard.  After that we used the front door exclusively while we were waiting for Butterwick to come up.  The dog had fits regularly, and he always got on the geranium-bed when he felt them coming on; and consequently, we did not enjoy our flowers as much as we hoped to.  The cherries were ripe during the reign of Butterwick’s dog, but they rotted on the trees, all but a few, which were picked by Smith’s boy, who subsequently went over the fence in a sensational manner without stopping to ascertain what Butterwick’s dog was going to do with the mouthful of drawers and corduroy trousers that he had removed from Smith’s boy’s leg.  As Butterwick did not come up, the dog enjoyed himself roaming about the yard a while; but one day, finding the back window in the parlor open, he jumped in and assumed control of that apartment and the hall.  I tried to dislodge him with a clothes-prop, but I only succeeded in knocking two costly vases off of the mantel-piece, and the dog became so excited and threatening that I shut the door hurriedly and went up stairs four steps at a time.

[Illustration:  SMITH’S BOY RETREATS]

There was nothing to interest him especially in the parlor, and I cannot imagine why he wanted to stay there.  But he did; and as Butterwick didn’t come up, we couldn’t dislodge him.  On Thursday he smashed the mirror during an attempt to get up a fight with another dog that he thought he saw in there, and he clawed the sofa to rags.  On Saturday he had a fit in the hall, and spoiled about eight square yards of Brussels carpet utterly.  When he recovered, he went back into the parlor.  At last I borrowed Coffin’s dog and sent him in to fight Butterwick’s dog out.  It was an exhilarating contest.  They fought on the chairs and sofas; they upset a table and smashed all the ornaments on it; they scattered blood and hair in blotches all over the carpet; they got entangled in one of the lace curtains and dragged it and the frame down with a crash; they scratched and bit and tore and frothed and yelled; and at last Coffin’s dog gave in, put his tail between his legs and retreated, while Butterwick’s dog got on a sixty-dollar Turkish rug, so that he could bleed comfortably.