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.