Nobody saw him, nobody stopped him. He reached the door; a glance, a sniff here and there, and he was free.
Once outside he walked quietly for a hundred yards or so, nose in air.
Soon, however, he was ready to come back and was just thinking of going in again when he saw at the corner of the street five or six other dogs following a man who was carrying a parcel. This made him curious; there was a queer smell, too, which attracted him. In a trice he had joined the group.
"After all," he said to himself pretty soon, "though the smell is appetizing enough, I have better than that at home. Good-bye, my friends, and good luck. I am going home to breakfast."
Whereupon, giving up the chase, he turned to go home. Alas! it was too late. The man had just thrown a lasso, which caught Clown around the neck. He tried to get away, to cry out, to struggle, to bite; the knot tightened, choking him. He was muzzled, and forced by kicks—the first he ever received in his life—to go, willy-nilly, with the dog-thief. For that was what the man was, and one of the very worst of his kind, too.
