u would run as fast as anybody else, if he should show
himself round here," said Hans.

"There he is! Run! run! run for your lives!" was the sudden cry.

Paul looked up the street, and saw a very large bull-dog coming upon the
trot. Never was there such a scampering. People ran into the nearest
houses, pellmell. One man jumped into his wagon, lashed his horse into a
run, and went down the street, losing his hat in his flight, while Hans
Middlekauf went up a tree.

"Run, Paul! Run! he'll bite you!" cried Mr. Leatherby from the window of
his shoe-shop. People looked out from the windows and repeated the cry,
a half-dozen at once; but Paul took no notice of them. Those who were
nearest him heard the click of his gun-lock. The dog came nearer,
growling, and snarling, his mouth wide open, showing his teeth, his eyes
glaring, and white froth dripping from his lips. Paul stood alone in the
street. There was a sudden silence. It was a scene for a painter,--a
barefoot boy in patched clothes, with an old hat on his head, standing
calmly before the brute whose bite was death in its most terrible form.
One thought had taken possession of Paul's mind, that he ought to kill
the dog.

Nearer, nearer, came the dog; he was not a rod off. Paul had read that
no animal can withstand the steady gaze of the human eye. He looked the
dog steadily in the face. He held his breath. Not a nerve trembled. The
dog stopped, looked at Paul a moment, broke into a louder growl, opened
his jaws wider, his eyes glaring more wildly, and stepped slowly
forward. Now or never, Paul thought, was his time. The breach of the gun
touched his shoulder; his eye ran along the barrel,--bang! the dog
rolled over with a yelp and a howl, but was up again, growling and
trying to get at Paul, who in an instant seized his gun by the barrel,
and brought the breech down upon the dog's skull, giving him blow after
blow.

"Kill him! kill him!" shouted the people from the windows.

"Give it to him! Mash his head!" cried Hans from the tree.

The dog soon became a mangled and bloody mass of flesh and bones. The
people came out from their houses.

"That was well done for a boy," said Mr. Funk.

"Or for a man either," said Mr. Chrome, who came up and patted Paul on
his back.

"I should have thrown my lapstone at him, if I could have got my window
open," said Mr. Leatherby. Mr. Noggin, the cooper, who had taken refuge
in Leatherby's shop, afterwards said that Leatherby w