This black eye was a direct outcome of my zeal as deacon. Between the duties it imposed upon me, and my work as a newspaper man, I was getting very much in need of exercise of some sort. The doctor recommended Indian clubs; but the boys in the office liked boxing, and it seemed to me to have some advantages. So we clubbed together, and got a set of gloves, and when we were not busy would put them on and have a friendly set-to. It was inevitable that our youthful spirits should rise at these meetings, and with them occasionally certain lumps, which afterward shaded off into various tints bordering more or less on black until we learned to keep a leech on hand for emergencies. You see, what with the spirit of the contest, the tenderness of our untrained flesh, and certain remembered scores which were thus paid off in an entirely friendly and Christian manner, leaving no bad blood behind,--especially after we had engaged the leech,--this was not only reasonable, but inevitable. But the brethren knew nothing of this, and couldn't be persuaded to listen to it; and, in fairness, it must be owned that the spectacle of a deacon with a black eye and a handful of poker chips expounding the text in prayer-meeting was--well, let us say that appearances were against me. Still, I might have come through it all right had it not been for Mac. Mac was the dog. It never rains but it pours; and just at this time midnight burglars took to raiding our suburban town, and dogs came into fashion. Mac came into it with a long jump. He had been part of the outfit of a dog pit in a low dive on the East Side which the police had broken up. Sergeant Jack had heard of my need, and gave him to me for old acquaintance' sake, warranting him to keep anybody away from the house. Upon this point there was never the least doubt. We might just as well have lived on a desert island while we had him. People went around the next block to avoid our house. It was not because Mac was unsociable; quite the contrary. He took to the town from the first, especially to the other dogs. These he generally took by the throat, to the great distress of their owners. I have never heard that bulldogs as a class have theories, and I am not prepared to discuss the point. I know that Mac had. He was an evolutionist, with a firm belief in the principle of the survival of the fittest; and he did all one dog could do to carry it into practice. His efforts eventually brought it down to a question between himself and a big long-haired dog in the next street. I think of this with regret, because it was the occasion of my one real slip. The dog led me into temptation.