“I see!” said the dog-catcher. “And you want to get rid of him. If he was my dog, I would want to get rid of him, too. I have seen lots of dogs, but I never saw one that was like this, and I do not blame you for wanting to part with him. I have had my eye on him for several years, but this is the first opportunity I have had to approach him. Now, however, he seems to have broken all the dog laws. He has not secured a license, and he is in the public highway. It will be my duty to take him up and gently chloroform him as soon as I make sure of one thing.” “Tell me what it is,” I said, “and I will help you make sure of ft.” “Thank you,” he said, “but I will attend to it,” and with that he got on his wagon and drove off. He returned in about an hour. “I came back,” he said, “not because my legal duty compels me, but because I knew you would be anxious. If I owned a dog like that, I would be anxious, too. I can't take that dog.” “Why not?” we all asked. “Because,” he said, “I have been down to the city hall, and I have looked up the records, and I find that the streets of this addition to the city have not been accepted by the city. The titles to the property are so made out that until the city legally accepts the streets, each property owner owns to the middle of the street fronting his property. If you will step out and look, you will see that the dog is on your own property.” [Illustration: 72] “If that is all,” I said, “I will move the stake. I will put him on the other side of the street.” “If you would like him any better there,” said the dog-catcher, “you can move him, but it would make no difference to me. Then he would be on the private property of the man who owns the property across the street.” “But, my good man,” I said, “how _is_ a man to get rid of a dog he does not want?” The dog-catcher frowned. “That,” he said, “seems to be one of the things our lawmakers have not thought of. But whatever you do, I advise you to be careful. Do not try any underhand methods, for now that my attention has been called to the dog, I shall have to watch his future and see that he is not badly used. I am an officer of the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals as well as a dog-catcher, and I warn you to be careful what you do with that dog.” Then he got on his wagon again and drove away. The next morning I was a nervous wreck, for Fluff had howled all night, and Murchison came over soon after breakfast. He was accompanied by Brownlee and Massett. “Now, I am the last man in the world to do anything that my neighbors would take offense at,” he said, as soon as they were seated on my porch, “and Brownlee and Massett love dogs as few men ever love them; but something has to be done about Fluff. The time has come when we must sleep with our windows open, and neither Massett nor Brownlee nor I got a minute of sleep last night.” “Neither did I,” I said.