TAG; OR, THE CHIEN BOULE DOG
Superior pay fer his ticket an’ said he was goin’ ter set the police on her, an’ then I had to make up a yarn about the horse runnin’ away the mornin’ the kids was shipped an’ my chasin’ it an’ a man at the station bein’ left to tie on the tags and the Lord knows what all. As fer the bull pup, why I owned him an’ was trainin’ him to fight Joe Lancey’s dog fer a wager, an’ the sisters come on me siccin’ ‘em on one day an’ they near had hystericks an’ I pretended I was scared of ’em an’ hadn’t ever seen either of ’em before. So I jest had to git rid of the pup. An’ now,” he paused to shift his tobacco quid and gloomily shake his head, “An’ now you're wantin’ me to go up there an’ hand over the kid an’ the pup to Mother Alice! She’s a saint, ma’am, is Mother Alice. Sure she’s a saint. But fer the love o’ God, Mrs. Patterson, did you ever see a saint good and mad? Righteous mad?”
