to feel better after the meal than he
had done for years. Finally, Butterwick came home, and he called to
get his dog. He entered the parlor bravely and attempted to seize
the animal, when it bit him. I was never so glad in my life. Then
Butterwick got mad; and seizing the dog by the tail, he smashed him
through my French glass window into the street. Then I was not so very
glad. Then the dog went mad and a policeman killed him. The next time
I am asked to take a strange dog home I will kill him to begin with.

When I explained to Colonel Coffin the unpleasant nature of my
experience with Mr. Butterwick's dog, the colonel said that he had had
a good deal to do lately, in a legal way, with dogs; and he gave me
the facts respecting two interesting cases. The first was Tompkins'
case.

A man called at the colonel's law-office one day and said,

"Colonel, my name is Tompkins. I called to see you about a dog
difficulty that bewilders me, and I thought maybe you might throw some
light on it--might give me the law points, so's I'd know whether it
was worth while suing or not.

"Well, colonel, you see me and Potts went into partnership on a dog;
we bought him. He was a setter; and me and Potts went shares on him,
so's to take him out a-hunting. It was never exactly settled which
half of him I owned and which half belonged to Potts; but I formed an
idea in my own mind that the hind end was Tompkins' and the front end
Potts'. Consequence was that when the dog barked I always said, 'There
goes Potts half exercising himself;' and when the dog's tail wagged, I
always considered that my end was being agitated. And, of course,
when one of my hind legs scratched one of Potts' ears or one of his
shoulders, I was perfectly satisfied--first, because that sort of
thing was good for the whole dog; and, second, because the thing would
get about even when Potts' head would reach around and bite a flea off
my hind legs or snap at a fly.

"Well, things went along smooth enough for a while, until one day that
dog began to get into the habit of running around after his tail. He
was the foolishest dog about that I ever saw. Used to chase his tail
round and round until he'd get so giddy he couldn't bark. And you know
I was scared lest it might hurt the dog's health; and as Potts didn't
seem to be willing to keep his end from circulating in pursuit of my
end, I made up my mind to chop the dog's tail off, so's to make him
reform and behave. So