_THE DOG OF MR. BUTTERWICK'S, AND OTHER DOGS_.
One day I met Mr. Butterwick in the street leading his dog with a
chain. He said that it was a very valuable dog and he was anxious to
get it safely home, but he had to catch a train, and I would confer a
personal favor upon him if I would take the dog to my house and keep
it until he returned from the city. The undertaking was not a pleasant
one, but I disliked to disoblige Butterwick, and so I consented.
Butterwick gave me his end of the chain and left in a hurried manner.
I got the dog home with the greatest difficulty, and turned it into
the cellar. About an hour later I received a telegram from Butterwick
saying that he had been compelled to go down to the lower part of
Jersey, and that he wouldn't be home for a week or two. That was on
the 12th of June, and after that time only two persons entered the
cellar. The hired girl went down once after the cold beef, and came up
disheveled and bleeding, with a number of appalling dog-bites in
her legs, and I descended immediately afterward for the purpose of
pacifying the infuriated animal. He did not feel disposed to become
calm, however, and I deem it probable that if I had not suddenly
clambered into the coal-bin, where I remained until he fell asleep in
a distant corner about four hours later, I should certainly have been
torn to pieces. We thought we would have to try to get along with out
using the cellar until Butterwick could come up and take away his dog.
But Butterwick wrote to say that he couldn't come, and the dog, after
eating everything in the cellar and barking all through every night,
finally bolted up stairs into the kitchen on the 2d of July, and
established himself in the back yard. After that we used the front
door exclusively while we were waiting for Butterwick to come up. The
dog had fits regularly, and he always got on the geranium-bed when he
felt them coming on; and consequently, we did not enjoy our flowers
as much as we hoped to. The cherries were ripe during the reign of
Butterwick's dog, but they rotted on the trees, all but a few, which
were picked by Smith's boy, who subsequently went over the fence in a
sensational manner without stopping to ascertain what Butterwick's dog
was going to do with the mouthful of drawers and corduroy trousers
that he had removed from Smith's boy's leg. As Butterwick did not come
up, the dog enjoyed himself roaming about the yard a while; but one
day, finding the back window in the parlor open, he jumped in and
assumed control of that apartment and the hall. I tried to dislodge
him with a clothes-prop, but I only succeeded in knocking two costly
vases off of the mantel-piece, and the dog became so excited and
threatening that I shut the door hurriedly and went up stairs four
steps at a time.
[Illustration: SMITH'S BOY RETREATS]
There was nothing to interest him especially in the parlor, and
I cannot imagine why he wanted to stay there. But he did; and as
Butterwick didn't come up, we couldn't dislodge him. On Thursday he
smashed the mirror during an attempt to get up a fight with another
dog that he thought he saw in there, and he clawed the sofa to rags.
On Saturday he had a fit in the hall, and spoiled about eight square
yards of Brussels carpet utterly. When he recovered, he went back into
the parlor. At last I borrowed Coffin's dog and sent him in to fight
Butterwick's dog out. It was an exhilarating contest. They fought on
the chairs and sofas; they upset a table and smashed all the ornaments
on it; they scattered blood and hair in blotches all over the carpet;
they got entangled in one of the lace curtains and dragged it and the
frame down with a crash; they scratched and bit and tore and frothed
and yelled; and at last Coffin's dog gave in, put his tail between
his legs and retreated, while Butterwick's dog got on a sixty-dollar
Turkish rug, so that he could bleed comfortably.
It didn't seem to occur to him to go home, and still Butterwick didn't
come up. The next day I loaded a shot-gun and determined to kill him
at any sacrifice. I aimed carefully at him, but at the critical moment
he dodged, and two handfuls of bird-shot went into the piano and tore
it up badly. Then I tossed some poisoned meat' at him, but he ate all
around the poison, and seemed to feel better after the meal than he
had done for years. Finally, Butterwick came home, and he called to
get his dog. He entered the parlor bravely and attempted to seize
the animal, when it bit him. I was never so glad in my life. Then
Butterwick got mad; and seizing the dog by the tail, he smashed him
through my French glass window into the street. Then I was not so very
glad. Then the dog went mad and a policeman killed him. The next time
I am asked to take a strange dog home I will kill him to begin with.
When I explained to Colonel Coffin the unpleasant nature of my
experience with Mr. Butterwick's dog, the colonel said that he had had
a good deal to do lately, in a legal way, with dogs; and he gave me
the facts respecting two interesting cases. The first was Tompkins'
case.
A man called at the colonel's law-office one day and said,
"Colonel, my name is Tompkins. I called to see you about a dog
difficulty that bewilders me, and I thought maybe you might throw some
light on it--might give me the law points, so's I'd know whether it
was worth while suing or not.
"Well, colonel, you see me and Potts went into partnership on a dog;
we bought him. He was a setter; and me and Potts went shares on him,
so's to take him out a-hunting. It was never exactly settled which
half of him I owned and which half belonged to Potts; but I formed an
idea in my own mind that the hind end was Tompkins' and the front end
Potts'. Consequence was that when the dog barked I always said, 'There
goes Potts half exercising himself;' and when the dog's tail wagged, I
always considered that my end was being agitated. And, of course,
when one of my hind legs scratched one of Potts' ears or one of his
shoulders, I was perfectly satisfied--first, because that sort of
thing was good for the whole dog; and, second, because the thing would
get about even when Potts' head would reach around and bite a flea off
my hind legs or snap at a fly.
"Well, things went along smooth enough for a while, until one day that
dog began to get into the habit of running around after his tail. He
was the foolishest dog about that I ever saw. Used to chase his tail
round and round until he'd get so giddy he couldn't bark. And you know
I was scared lest it might hurt the dog's health; and as Potts didn't
seem to be willing to keep his end from circulating in pursuit of my
end, I made up my mind to chop the dog's tail off, so's to make him
reform and behave. So last Saturday I caused the dog to back up agin a
log, and then I suddenly dropped the axe on his tail pretty close up,
and the next minute he was running around that yard howling like a
boat-load of wild-cats. Just then Potts came up, and he let on to be
mad because I'd cut off that tail. One word brought on another; and
pretty soon Potts set that dog on me--my own half too, mind you--and
the dog bit me in the leg. See that! look at that leg! About half a
pound gone; et up by that dog.
"Now, what I want to see you about is this: Can't I recover damages
for assault and battery from Potts? What I chopped off belonged to me,
recollect. I owned an undivided half of that setter pup, from the tip
of his tail clear up to his third rib, and I had a right to cut away
as much of it as I'd a mind to; while Potts, being sole owner of the
dog's head, is responsible when he bites anybody, or when he barks at
nights."
"I don't know," replied the colonel, musingly. "There haven't been any
decisions on cases exactly like this. But what does Mr. Potts say upon
the subject?"
"Why, Potts' view is that I divided the dog the wrong way. When he
wants to map out his half he draws a line from the middle of the nose
right along the spine and clear to the end of the tail. That gives me
one hind leg and one fore leg and makes him joint proprietor in the
tail. And he says that if I wanted to cut off my half of the tail I
might have done it, and he wouldn't've cared, but what made him mad
was that I wasted his property without consulting him. But that theory
seems to me a little strained; and if it's legal, why, I'm going to
close out my half of the dog at a sacrifice sooner than hold any
interest in him on those principles. Now, what do you think about it?"
"Well," said the colonel, "I can hardly decide so important a question
off-hand; but at the first glance my opinion is that you own the whole
dog, and that Potts also owns the whole dog. So when he bites you, a
suit won't lie against Potts, and the only thing you can do to obtain
justice is to make the dog bite Potts also. As for the tail, when it
is separated from the dog it is no longer the dog's tail, and it is
not worth fighting about."
"Can't sue Potts, you say?"
"I think not."
"Can't get damages for the piece that's been bit out of me?"
"I hardly think you can."
"Well, well, and yet they talk about American civilization, and
temples of justice, and such things! All right. Let it go. I can stand
it; but don't anybody ever undertake to tell me that the law protects
human beings in their rights. Good-morning."
"Wait a moment, Mr. Tompkins; you've forgotten my fee."
"F-f-f-fee! Why, you don't charge anything when I don't sue, do you?"
"Certainly, for my advice. My fee is ten dollars."
"Ten dollars! Ten dollars! Why, colonel, that's just what I paid for
my half of that dog. I haven't got fifty cents to my name. But I'll
tell you what I'll do: I'll make over all my rights in that setter pup
to you, and you kin go round and fight it out with Potts. If that dog
bites me again, I'll sue you and Potts as sure as my name's Tompkins."
The other case was of a somewhat more serious character. Upon a
subsequent occasion a man hobbled into the office upon crutches.
Proceeding to a chair and making a cushion of some newspapers, he sat
down very gingerly, placed a bandaged leg upon another chair, and
said,
"Col. Coffin, my name is. Briggs. I want to get your opinion about a
little point of law. Now, colonel, s'posin' you lived up the 'pike
here a half a mile, next door to a man named Johnson. And s'posin' you
and Johnson was to get into an argument about the human intellect,
and you was to say to Johnson that a splendid illustration of the
superiority of the human intellect was to be found in the power of
the human eye to restrain the ferocity of a wild animal. And s'posin'
Johnson was to remark that that was all bosh, because nobody _could_
hold a wild animal with the human eye, and you should declare that you
could hold the savagest beast that was ever born if you could once fix
your gaze on him.
"Well, then, s'posin' Johnson was to say he'd bet a hundred dollars he
could bring a tame animal that you couldn't hold with your eye, and
you was to take him up on it, and Johnson was to ask you to come down
to his place to settle the bet. You'd go, we'll say, and Johnson'd
wander round to the back of the house and pretty soon come front
again with a dog bigger'n any four decent dogs ought to be. And then
s'posin' Johnson'd let go of that dog and set him on you, and he'd
come at you like a sixteen-inch shell out of a howitzer, and you'd
get scary about it and try to hold the dog with your eye, and
couldn't. And s'posin' you'd suddenly conclude that maybe your kind
of an eye wasn't calculated to hold that kind of a dog, and you'd
conclude to run for a plum tree in order to have a chance to collect
your thoughts, and to try to reflect what sort of an eye would be
best calculated to mollify that sort of a dog. You ketch my idea, of
course?
"Very well, then; s'posin you'd take your eye off of that dog,
Johnson, mind you, all the time hissing him on and laughing, and you'd
turn and rush for the tree, and begin to swarm up as fast as you
could. Well, sir, s'posin' just as you got three feet from the ground
Johnson's dog would grab you by the leg and hold on like a vise,
shaking you until you nearly lost your hold. And s'posin' Johnson was
to stand there and holloa, "Fix your eye on him, Briggs! Why don't you
manifest the power of the human intellect?" and so on, howling out
ironical remarks like those; and s'posin' he kept that dog on that leg
until he made you swear to pay the bet, and then at last had to pry
the dog off with a hot poker, bringing away at the same time some of
your flesh in the dog's mouth, so that you had to be carried home on
a stretcher, and to hire several doctors to keep you from dying with
lockjaw.
"S'posin' this, what I want to know is, couldn't you sue Johnson for
damages and make him pay heavily for what that dog did? That's what I
want to get at."
The colonel thought for a minute and then said, "Well, Mr. Briggs, I
don't think I could. If I agreed to let Johnson set the dog at me, I
should be a party to the transaction and I could not recover."
"Do you mean to say that the law won't make that infernal scoundrel
Johnson suffer for letting his dog eat me up?"
"I think not, if you state the case properly."
"It won't, hey?" exclaimed Mr. Briggs, hysterically. "Oh, very well,
very well! I s'pose if that dog had chewed me all up and spit me out
it'd've been all the same to this constitutional republic. But hang me
if I don't have satisfaction. I'll kill Johnson, poison his dog, and
emigrate to some country where the rights of citizens are protected.
If I don't, you may bust me open!"
Then Mr. Briggs got on his crutches and hobbled out. He is still a
citizen, and will vote at the next election.