"That ain't no good," says he. "We tried it. Bonnie Bell already killed two of their dogs with her new electric brougham. You see, she had to go out and try it for herself, for she says she can ride anything that has hair on it, even if it's only curled hair in the cushions. First thing you know, the Wisner dog—pug nose it was, with its tail curled tight—it goes out on the road, acting like it owned the whole street, same as its folks does. Well, right then him and Bonnie Bell's new electric mixes it. The dog got the worst of it.
"Look-a-here, Curly," says he after a while, and pulls a square piece of paper outen his pocket. "Here's what we got in return for that—before Bonnie Bell had time to say she was sorry. The old lady wrote, for once:
Mrs. David Abraham Wisner requests that the people living next door to her exercise greater care in the operation of their vehicles, as the animal lost through the criminal carelessness of one of these people was of great value.
"Ain't that hell?" says he. "Cheerful, ain't it? No name signed to it—nothing! But you can see from that just how they felt. That was three days ago. They got a new dog. Well, this morning Bonnie Bell killed that one!
"The trouble with them dogs is, they been used to thinking they own this whole end of the street. They don't seem to recognize that we're anybody at all. It's a awful thing and it put Bonnie Bell in wrong. She didn't know what to do. She was so mad she wouldn't write. So she sends for Jimmie—I mean James, our chauffore—he's got almost sober lately, it being three months or so since Christmas, and him knowing a lot about dogs. So she buys a new dog for them—a large one that you can see easy, a collie dog; and Jimmie says he paid one-fifty for it."
"A dollar and a half is more than any dog is worth," says I, "especial a dog that has anything to do with someone like that Wisner woman."
"A dollar and a half!" says he. "A hundred and fifty is what it cost; this was a swell dog—a young collie about a year old. Well, Bonnie Bell, she sends it round by James, our chauffore, with her compliments. Their butler takes it in. I don't know whether it's going to stick or not. It's a sort of olive branch. You see, Bonnie Bell can't write to no such people, but she is sorry for killing their dogs and she wants to make good somehow. I think it was a right good way. It looks like she could hold her own, and yet like she was willing to meet 'em halfway.
"Well, that's all we can do," says he. "Let it go the way it lays on the board. I don't like Old Man Wisner a little bit anyhow."
"Well," says I, "if he's running for alderman, why don't you run for sher'f or something, just to keep occupied?"
"I'm studying my ward," says he. "I don't know very many of the saloon people yet. You have to be pretty far along to get to be sher'f in a place like this. But now, a alderman might be easier, if you went at it right. Anyways, the way they have acted, I feel like I'd copper any game Old Man Wisner was playing. I kind of feel in my bones that him and me is going to lock horns, Curly. I don't like the way he acts; and, I tell you, when I want a neighbor to be friendly with me he's got to be friendly sometime."