and she was so pious I thought she
was an angel--but angels don't break dogs' legs. I'll bet when she goes
up to the gate and sees St. Peter open the book and look for the charges
against her, she will tremble as though she had fits. And when St. Peter
runs his finger down the ledger, and stops at the dog column, and turns
and looks at her over his spectacles, and says, "Madam, how about your
stabbing a poor dog with a velocipede, and breaking its leg?" she
will claim it was an accident; but she can't fool Pete. He is on to
everybody's racket, and if they get in there, they have got to have a
clean record."

"Say, look-a-here," said the grocery man, as he looked at the boy in
astonishment as he unwound the handkerchief to dress the dog's broken
leg, while the dog looked up in the boy's face with an expression of
thankfulness and confidence that he was an able practitioner in dog
bone-setting, "what kind of talk is that? You talk of heaven as though
its books were kept like the books of a grocery and you speak too
familiarly of St. Peter."

"Well, I didn't mean any disrespect," said the boy, as he fixed the
splint on the dog's leg, and tied it with a string, while the dog licked
his hand, "but I learned in Sunday school that up there they watch even
the sparrow's fail, and they wouldn't be apt to get left on a dog bigger
than a whole flock of sparrows, 'specially when the dog's fall was
accompanied with such noise as a velocipede makes when it falls down
stairs. No sir, a woman who throws a velocipede at a poor, homeless dog,
and breaks its leg, may carry a car load of prayer books, and she may
attend to all the sociables, but according to what I have been told, if
she goes sailing up to the gate of New Jerusalem, as though she owned
the whole place, and expects to be ushered into a private box, she will
get left. The man in the box office will tell her she is not on the
list, and that there is a variety show below, where the devil is a star,
and fallen angels are dancing the cancan with sheet-iron tights, on
brimstone lakes, and she can probably crawl under the canvas, but
she can't get in among the angelic hosts until she can satisfactorily
explain that dog story that is told on her. Possibly I have got a raw
way of expressing myself, but I had rather take my chances, if I should
apply for admission up there, with this lame dog under my arm than to
take hers with a pug that hain't got any legs broke. A lame dog and a