"Thank you," said Jerry with great heartiness.
Now to get home in a hurry. He went out to get his cart, which he had left outside the barbershop. A big red setter dog was pawing the bag of groceries. "Red! Get away from there!" Jerry yelled. With horror he saw that the dog had the leg of lamb in his strong jaws.
"Drop that, Red!" shouted Jerry. He ran and grabbed the other end of the leg of lamb and tried to get it away from the dog.
Red was a good-natured animal who often seemed to forget he was a dog, he so much wanted to be one of the boys. He especially enjoyed taking part in baseball games. He ran bases and barked as loud as any of the players could shout. Last Saturday Jerry might have made a home run if Red had not dashed in front of him so Jerry fell over him. Now Red thought a tug of war with a leg of lamb was a fine game.
Jerry pulled. The red setter braced his legs and pulled.
"You mean dog! Leggo! Leggo!" screamed Jerry.
The desperation in his voice finally had an effect on Red's tender heart. He let go of his end of the leg of lamb so suddenly that Jerry sat down hard. The leg of lamb fell in the dirt.
Jerry brushed off bits of gravel from his Sunday dinner. Red's teeth marks didn't show unless you looked very closely. Jerry wrapped the leg of lamb in the torn paper bag. It was a lucky thing he had come out of the barbershop before Red had run off with it. "That dog is getting to be a nuisance," he thought. But he really liked Red and had often wished he were one of the Martin family instead of belonging to a neighbor.