“Well, then,” I says, “I'll be out of this cage along about supper time. Suppose you bring that Blind Man's Dog around here. And if he ain't got a spiked collar on to him, I'll fight him. I won't fight a spike-collared dog to please anybody.”
And I wouldn't, neither, without I had one on myself, If you can't get a dog by the throat or the back of his neck, what's the use of fighting him? You might just as well try to eat a blacksmith shop as fight one of those spike-collared dogs.
“Hey, there!” Freckles yelled at Tom Mulligan, who is Mutt Mulligan's boy. “You get your fool dog away from the lion-eaters cage!”
Tom, he histed Mutt away. But he says to Freckles, being jealous himself, “Don't be scared, Freck, I won't let my dog hurt yours any. Spot, he's safe. He's in a cage where Mutt can't get to him.”
Freckles got riled. He says, “1 ain't in any cage, Tom.”
Tom, he didn't want to fight very bad. But all the other boys and dogs was looking on. And he'd sort of started it. He didn't figure that he could shut up that easy. And there was some girls there, too.
“If I was to make a pass at you,” says Tom, “you'd wish you was in a cage.”
Freckles, he didn't want to fight so bad, either. But he was running this circus, and he didn't feel he could afford to pass by what Tom said too easy. So he says:
“Maybe you think you're big enough to put me into a cage.”
“If I was to make a pass at you,” says Tom, “there wouldn't be enough left of you to put in a cage.”