the road reminds me of old Uncle Billy Alexander who
paid for his shoes in bacon, and paid every spring in advance for the
shoes he was to get in the fall. But one fall when he rid over after
his shoes, the neighbors said the shoemaker had gone--gone for
good--to Texas to live--gone an' left his creditors behin'. Uncle
Billy looked long an' earnestly t'wards the settin' sun, raised his
han's to heaven an' said: 'Good-bye, my bacon!'"

Billy Buch laughed loudly.

"Dat ees goot--goot--goot-bye, mine bac'n! I dus remember dat."

Bonaparte had partaken of his fourth cuspidor of beer and was in a
delightful state of swagger and fight when he saw an unusual
commotion up the street. What was it, thought Bonaparte--a crowd of
boys and men surrounding another man with an organ and leading a
little devil of a hairy thing, dressed up like a man.

His hair bristled with indignation. That little thing dividing honors
with him in Cottontown? It was not to be endured for a moment!

Bonaparte stood gazing in indignant wonder. He slowly arose and
shambled along half drunkenly to see what it all meant. A crowd had
gathered around the thing--the insignificant thing which was
attracting more attention in Cottontown than himself, the champion
dog. Among them were some school boys, and one of them, a red-headed
lad, was telling his brother all about it.

"Now, Ozzie B., this is a monkey--the furst you've ever seed. He
looks jes' like I told you--sorter like a man an' sorter like a
nigger an' sorter like a groun' hog."

"The pretties' thing I ever seed," said Ozzie B., walking around and
staring delightedly.

The crowd grew larger. It was a show Cottontown had never seen
before.

Then two men came out of the bar-room--one, the bar-keeper, fat and
jolly, and the other lank and with malicious eyes.

This gave Bonaparte his cue and he bristled and growled.

"Look out, mister," said the tender-hearted Ozzie B. to the Italian,
"watch this here dog, Bonaparte; he's terrible 'bout fightin'. He'll
eat yo' monkey if he gets a chance."

"Monk he noo 'fear'd ze dog," grinned the Italian. "Monk he whup ze
dog."

"Vot's dat?" exclaimed Billy Buch--"Vot's dat, man, you say? Mine
Gott, I bet ten to one dat Ponyparte eats him oop!"

To prove it Bonaparte ran at the monkey savagely. But the monkey ran
up on the Italian's shoulder, where he grinned at the dog.

The Italian smiled. Then he ran his hand into a dirty leathern belt
which he car