d trembled just as though he was putting a gun
wad in the collection plate at church, and he said, 'My son, tell me
truly, is that a red dog?'"

[Illustration: Well I'm dem'd 014]

"A fellow has got to lie a little if he is going to have any fun with
his Pa, and I told him it was a white dog, and I could get it for five
dol-dars. He straightened up just as the dog went into the house, and
said 'Well, I'm dem'd;' and just then the boy let all the dogs out and
sicked them on a cat, which ran up a shade tree right near Pa, and they
rushed all around us--the blue dog going between his legs, and the green
dog trying to climb the tree, and the pink dog barking, and the red dog
standing on his hind feet.

"Pa was weak as a cat, and told me to go right home with him, and he
would buy me a bicycle. He asked me how many dogs there were, and what
was the color of them. I s'pose I did awful wrong, but I told him there
was only one dog, and a cat, and the dog was white.

"Well, sir, Pa acted just as he did the night Hancock was beat, and he
had to have the doctor to give him something to quiet him (the time he
wanted me to go right down town and buy a hundred rat traps, but the
doctor said never mind, I needn't go). I took him home and Ma soaked
his feet, and give him some ginger tea, and while I was gone after the
doctor he asked Ma if she ever saw a green dog.

"That was what made all the trouble. If Ma had kept her mouth shut I
would have been all right, but she up and told him that they had a green
dog, and a blue dog, and all colors of spitz dogs down at the dyers.
They dyed them just for an advertisement, and for him to be quiet and he
would feel better when he got over it. Pa was all right when I got back
and told him the doctor had gone to Wauwatosa, and I had left an order
on his slate. Pa said he would leave an order on my slate. He took a
harness tug and used it for breeching on me. I don't think a boy's Pa
ought to wear a harness on his son, do you? He said he would learn me to
play rainbow dogs on him. He said I was a liar, and he expected to see
me wind up in Congress. Say, is Congress anything like Waupun or Sing
Sing? No, I can't stay, thank you, I must go down to the office and tell
Pa I have reformed, and freeze him out of a circus ticket. He is a a
good enough man, only he don't appreciate a a boy that has got all
the modern improvements. Pa and Ma are going to enter me in the Sunday
school. I guess I'll take