to bark angrily in a back yard, and a dozen comrades responded
from other yards, and came bounding into the street.

"Hello!" thought Paul Jespersen. "Now look out for trouble."

He felt anything but hilarious when he saw the pack of angry dogs
dancing and leaping about him, barking in a wildly discordant chorus.

"Why, Hector, you fool, don't you know me?" he said, coaxingly, to the
judge's mastiff. "And you, Sultan, old man! You ought to be ashamed
of yourself! Here, Caro, that's a good fellow! Come, now, don't excite
yourself!"

But Hector, Sultan, and Caro were all proof against such blandishments,
and as for Bismarck, the apothecary's collie, he grew every moment more
furious, and showed his teeth in a very uncomfortable fashion.

To defend one's self was not to be thought of, for what defence is
possible to a sham bear against a dozen genuine dogs? Paul could use
neither his teeth nor his claws to any purpose, while the dogs could use
theirs, as he presently discovered, with excellent effect.

He had just concluded to seek safety in flight, when suddenly he felt a
bite in his left calf, and saw the brute Bismarck tug away at his leg
as if it had been a mutton-chop. He had scarcely recovered from this
surprise when he heard a sharp report, and a bullet whizzed away over
his head, after having neatly put a hole through the right ear. Paul
concluded, with reason, that things were getting serious.

If he could only get hold of that blockhead, the judge's groom, who was
violating the law about fire-arms, he would give him an exhibition in
athletics which he would not soon forget; but, being for the moment
deprived of this pleasure, he knew of nothing better to do than to dodge
through the nearest street-door, and implore the protection of the very
first individual he might meet.

It so happened that Paul selected the house of two middle-aged milliners
for this experiment.

Jemina and Malla Hansen were just seated at the table drinking tea with
their one constant visitor, the post-office clerk, Mathias, when, all
of a sudden, they heard a tremendous racket in the hall, and the furious
barking of dogs.

With a scream of fright, the two old maids jumyed up, dropping their
precious tea-cups, and old Mathias, who had tipped his chair a little
backward, lost his balance, and pointed his heels toward the ceiling.
Before he had time to pick himself up the door was burst open and a
great hairy monster sprang into the