I happened to think of a dog a boy in the Third Ward has got, that will do tricks. He will jump up and take a man’s hat off, and bring a handkerchief, and all that. So I got the boy to come up on our street, and Monday night, about dark, I got in the house and told the boy when Pa came along to make the dog take his hat, and to pin a handkerchief to Pa’s coat tail and make the dog take that, and then for him and the dog to lite out for home. Well, you’d a dide. Pa came up the street as dignified and important as though he had gone through bankruptcy, and tried to walk straight, and just as he got near the door the boy pointed to Pa’s hat and said, "Fetch it!" The dog is a big Newfoundland, but he is a jumper, and don’t you forget it. Pa is short and thick, and when the dog struck him on the shoulder and took his hat Pa almost fell over, and then he said get out, and he kicked and backed up toward the step, and then turned around and the boy pointed to the handkerchief and said, "fetch it," and the dog gave one bark and went for it, and got hold of it and a part of Pa’s duster, and Pa tried to climb up the steps on his hands and feet, and the dog pulled the other way, and it is an old last year’s duster anyway, and the whole back breadth come out, and when I opened the door there Pa stood with the front of his coat and the sleeves on, but the back was gone, and I took hold of his arm, and he said, "Get out," and was going to kick me, thinking I was a dog, and I told him I was his own little boy, and asked him if anything was the matter, and he said, "M (hic) atter enough. New F (hic) lanp dog chawing me last hour’n a half. Why didn’t you come and k (hic) ill’ em?" I told Pa there was no dog at all, and he must be careful of his health or I wouldn’t have no Pa at all. He looked at me and asked me, as he felt for the place where the back of his linen duster was, what had become of his coat-tail and hat if there was no dog, and I told him he had probably caught his coat on that barbed wire fence down street, and he said he saw the dog and a boy just as plain as could be, and for me to help him up stairs and go for the doctor. I got him to the bed, and he said, "this is a hellish climate my boy," and I went for the doctor. Pa said he wanted to be cauterised, so he wouldn’t go mad. I told the doc. the joke, and he said he would keep it up, and he gave Pa some powders, and told him if he drank any more before Christmas he was a dead man. Pa says it has learned him a lesson and they can never get any more pizen down him, but don’t you give me away, will you, cause he would go and complain to the police about the dog, and they would shoot it.