“’What fellow?  Why, the burglar, of course.  Didn’t you read about it in the newspaper?  There was a long piece published about it the day after it happened, with headings in big letters:  “The house No. 35 Wells Avenue, residence of Thomas Tompkins, the well-known dealer in hardware, cutlery, etc., was entered last night by burglars.  Much valuable 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 Street.

“’Then I set the yellow dog down on the sidewalk and looked him over.  My! he’s a beauty now to what he was then, for he’s clean and well-fed and respectable looking; but then he was nothing but skin and bone, and covered all over with mud and dirt, and one ear was torn and one eye swelled shut, and he limped when he walked, and—­well, never mind, old Grip! you was all right inside, wasn’t you?

“’Well, I never dreaded any thing more in all my life than taking that dog home.  Mother hates dogs.  She never would have one in the house, though I’ve always wanted a dog of my own.  I knew Liz would call him a horrid little monster, and Fred would poke fun at me—­and, oh, dear!  I’d rather have gone to the dentist’s or taken a Saturday-night scrub than go into that dining-room with Grip at my heels.