1 don't make any claim that I _knew_ it was the twin till I got into the front yard, mind you. But you can't prove I _didn't_ know it was.
And nobody tried to prove it. The gray bundle let out a squall.
“My baby!” yells Mrs. Wilkins. And she kissed me! I rubbed it off with my paw. And then the taffy-coloured-haired one kissed me. And the first thing I knew the pretty one kissed me. But when I saw the squint-eyed one coming I got behind Freckles and barked.
“Three cheers for Spot!” yelled the whole town. And they give them.
And then I saw what the lay of the land was, so 1 wagged my tail and barked.
It called for that hero stuff, and I throwed my head up and looked noble--and pulled it.
An hour before Freckles and me had been outcasts. And now we was Public Characters again. We walked down Main Street, and we owned it. And we hadn't any more than got to Doc Watson's drug store than in rushed Heinie Hassenyager with a lump of Hamburg steak, and with tears in his eyes.
“It's got chicken livers mixed in it, too!” says Heinie. I ate it. But while I ate it, I growled at him.
Never did I suppose that I would be a bloodhound in an “Uncle Tom's Cabin” show. But I have been one, and my constant wish is that it has not made me too proud and haughty. For proud and haughty dogs, sooner or later, all have their downfalls. The dog that was the rightful bloodhound in that show was the proudest and haughtiest dog I ever met, and he had his downfall.
Other proud and haughty dogs I have seen, in my time; and some of them I have licked, and some of them have licked me. For instance, there was the one that used to be a blind man's dog on a street corner in Chicago. He was a tough, loud-barking, red-eyed dog, full of suspiciousness and fleas; and his disposition was so bad that it was even said that if one of his fleas bit an ordinary dog, that ordinary dog would swell up where he was bit as if a hornet had stung him. He was proud of those fleas and proud of being that ornery; but he had his downfall.
Another proud and haughty dog I knew belonged to the dog and pony part of a circus that came to our town once. He sat in a little cart in the street parade, with a clown's hat and jacket on, and drove a Shetland pony. You couldn't get him into a fight; he would just grin and say he was worth too much money to risk himself in a fight, especially as the money he was worth did not belong to him anyhow, but to the circus that owned him. He said it wouldn't be honest to risk other people's money just because he wanted to fight; but I have never believed that he really wanted to fight. He grinned mostly all the time, a conceited kind of grin, and he would up-end himself and stand on his head for you to admire him, and then flop over and bark and look proud of his own tricks and proud of the money he was worth. But he had his downfall right in the midst of his greatest pride, for a brindle Tom-cat with one eye went after him right in the middle of that street parade, and he left that cart very quickly, and it nearly broke up the parade.