“Don’t let dogs worry you, kid; they’re cowards. I ought to know, I’ve been battlin’ ’em twenty years. They’ll bite you if you turn your back or run away, or if there’s a pack of ’em they’ll pull you down. If you get up against a hostile dog, rush him and he’ll weaken. I never got bit but once an’ that was in the town of Pueblo. I was just after gettin’ a six months’ floater out of Denver an’ went down to Pueblo to do a little D.D.ing with lavender for myself. I got myself a bunch of lavender and a ducat.” The other bum laughed, his mouth full of chicken. “You’re talkin’ Chinook to that kid. What does he know about the D.D. and lavender and ducats.” “You’re right,” I said. “I don’t know what he is talking about.” I was anxious to learn, but didn’t like to ask questions. “Well, it’s this way,” he went on. “I was dummyin’ up, see? Imitatin’ a deaf an’ dumb man. D.D.ing, see? You surely know what lavender is—stuff women put on clothes. You put about a spoonful in a small envelope. You’ve got a pocketful of the envelopes ready when you go out to make your ‘plunge.’ Then you get your ducat, see? That’s the main thing. I got a bartender to write it for me on the back of a lawyer’s card. When the women opens the door you slip her your ducat and she reads: ‘I am deaf and dumb. I got hurt by a street car and just came out of the county hospital. I am trying to get seven dollars to pay my fare home to Cheyenne. Please take a parcel of lavender and give what you can.’ Sometimes they take your lavender an’ sometimes they don’t, but they generally give up something, an’ they can’t ask you a lot of questions, and if a copper grabs you you’ve got an out. You ain’t exactly beggin’. “As I was sayin’ about dogs. I was battering the privates, see? Private houses. A woman had just slipped me a dime an’ was standin’ in the front door watchin’ to see that I got off the premises. I’m about halfway to the gate when I heard a dog snarlin’, an’ comin’ up behind me. I’m D.D., see, an’ don’t want to round on the damn dog an’ give myself a bawl-out in front of the woman, so I stand my ground figgerin’ she’ll stop him. The next thing I know he’s got half my pants leg ripped off an’ a chunk out of one of my shins. Anyway, I run him under the house. The woman took me in an’ fixed me up with arnica an’ a bandage. Then she gets me a good suit of her old man’s clothes, gives me two dollars, and holds the dog under the house till I get out the front gate. That’s dogs for you,” he finished, “an’ women.” I had a question, but the other bum asked it for me. “What do you do if you bump into a natural dummy when you’re D.D.ing?” “Well,” said the dog expert, “I never bumped into one, but if I did I suppose I’d do what everybody else does when they’re wrong an’ get caught at it. I’d get mad an’ cuss hell out of ’em.”