And him and me and Doc Watson, his dad, stopped in front of the lion's cage that night and took a good long look at him. He was a kind of an old moth-eaten lion, but he was a lion all right, and he looked mighty big in there. He looked so big that all my doubts come back on me, and I says to myself: “Honest, now, if I'd _a-known_ he was a lion, and that _big_ a lion, when I bit him, _would_ I have bit him or would I not?” But just then Freckles reached down and patted me on the head and said: “You wasn't afraid of him, was you, old Spot! Yes, sir, blood will tell!” BEING A PUBLIC CHARACTER (As told by the dog) Ever since I bit a circus lion, believing him to be another dog like myself, only larger, I have been what Doc Watson calls a Public Character in our town. Freckles, my boy, was a kind of a public character, too. He went around bragging about my noble blood and bravery, and all the other boys and dogs in town sort of looked up to him and thought how lucky he was to belong to a dog like me. And he deserved whatever glory he got of it, Freckles did. For, if I do say it myself, there's not a dog in town got a better boy than my boy Freckles, take him all in all. I'll back him against any dog's boy that is anywhere near his size, for fighting, swimming, climbing, foot-racing, or throwing stones farthest and straightest. Or I'll back him against any stray boy, either. Well, some dogs may be born Public Characters, and like it. And some may be brought up to like it. I've seen dogs in those travelling Uncle Tom's Cabin shows that were so stuck on themselves they wouldn't hardly notice us town dogs. But with me, becoming a Public Character happened all in a flash, and it was sort of hard for me to get used to it. One day I was just a private kind of a dog, as you might say, eating my meals at the Watson's back door, and pretending to hunt rats when requested, and not scratching off too many fleas in Doc Watson's drug store, and standing out from underfoot when told, and other unremarkable things like that. And the next day I had bit that lion and was a Public Character, and fame came so sudden I scarcely knew how to act. Even drummers from big places like St. Louis and Chicago would come into the drug store and look at my teeth and toe nails, as if they must be different from other dogs' teeth and toe nails. And people would come tooting up to the store in their little cars, and get out and look me over and say: “Well, Doc, what'll you take for him?” and Doc would wink, and say: “He's Harold's dog. You ask Harold.”