see two dogs standing on their hind-legs in the streets, clawing each
other's ears, and snapping for each other's windpipes, or howling and
swearing and rolling in the mud, I feel sorry they should act so, and
pretend not to notice. If he'd let me, I'd like to pass the time of
day with every dog I meet. But there's something about me that no
nice dog can abide. When I trot up to nice dogs, nodding and
grinning, to make friends, they always tell me to be off. "Go to the
devil!" they bark at me; "Get out!" and when I walk away they shout
"mongrel," and "gutter-dog," and sometimes, after my back is turned,
they rush me. I could kill most of them with three shakes, breaking
the back-bone of the little ones, and squeezing the throat of the big
ones. But what's the good? They are nice dogs; that's why I try to
make up to them, and though it's not for them to say it, I am a
street-dog, and if I try to push into the company of my betters, I
suppose it's their right to teach me my place.

Of course, they don't know I'm the best fighting bull-terrier of my
weight in Montreal. That's why it wouldn't be right for me to take no
notice of what they shout. They don't know that if I once locked my
jaws on them I'd carry away whatever I touched. The night I fought
Kelley's White Rat, I wouldn't loosen up until the Master made a
noose in my leash and strangled me, and if the handlers hadn't thrown
red pepper down my nose, I never would have let go of that Ottawa
dog. I don't think the handlers treated me quite right that time, but
maybe they didn't know the Ottawa dog was dead. I did.

I learned my fighting from my mother when I was very young. We slept
in a lumber-yard on the river-front, and by day hunted for food along
the wharves. When we got it, the other tramp-dogs would try to take
it off us, and then it was wonderful to see mother fly at them, and