sash with him. The simple fact was that I didn't
strike a blow. He literally fell out. However, that is another story,
and a much older one.

This black eye was a direct outcome of my zeal as deacon. Between the
duties it imposed upon me, and my work as a newspaper man, I was
getting very much in need of exercise of some sort. The doctor
recommended Indian clubs; but the boys in the office liked boxing, and
it seemed to me to have some advantages. So we clubbed together, and
got a set of gloves, and when we were not busy would put them on and
have a friendly set-to. It was inevitable that our youthful spirits
should rise at these meetings, and with them occasionally certain
lumps, which afterward shaded off into various tints bordering more or
less on black until we learned to keep a leech on hand for
emergencies. You see, what with the spirit of the contest, the
tenderness of our untrained flesh, and certain remembered scores which
were thus paid off in an entirely friendly and Christian manner,
leaving no bad blood behind,--especially after we had engaged the
leech,--this was not only reasonable, but inevitable. But the brethren
knew nothing of this, and couldn't be persuaded to listen to it; and,
in fairness, it must be owned that the spectacle of a deacon with a
black eye and a handful of poker chips expounding the text in
prayer-meeting was--well, let us say that appearances were against me.

Still, I might have come through it all right had it not been for Mac.
Mac was the dog. It never rains but it pours; and just at this time
midnight burglars took to raiding our suburban town, and dogs came
into fashion. Mac came into it with a long jump. He had been part of
the outfit of a dog pit in a low dive on the East Side which the
police had broken up. Sergeant Jack had heard of my need, and gave him
to me for old acquaintance' sake, warranting him to keep anybody away
from the house. Upon this point there was never the least doubt. We
might just as well have lived on a desert island while we had him.
People went around the next block to avoid our house. It was not
because Mac was unsociable; quite the contrary. He took to the town
from the first, especially to the other dogs. These he generally took
by the throat, to the great distress of their owners. I have never
heard that bulldogs as a class have theories, and I am not prepared
to discuss the point. I know that Mac had. He was an evolutionist,
with a firm belief