Three times round, and still the little fugitive maintained a lead.  A gray-helmeted policeman, a big fellow, had joined the pursuit.  He had children at home who might be playing in the street, and the thought of what might happen to them if the mad dog should head that way resolved him to be cool and steady.  He was falling behind, so he stopped on the corner, trusting that Respectability would come round again.  He was right, and the flying brownish thing streaked along Main Street, passing the beloved stairway for the fourth time.  The policeman lifted his revolver, fired twice, missed once, but caught him with the second shot in a forepaw, clipping off a fifth toe, one of the small claws that grow above the foot and are always in trouble.  This did not stop him; but the policeman, afraid to risk another shot because of the crowd, waited for him to come again; and many others, seeing the hopeless circuit the mongrel followed, did likewise, armed with bricks and clubs.  Among them was the pimply clerk, who had been inspired to commandeer a pitchfork from a hardware store.

When the fifth round came, Respectability’s race was run.  He turned into Main Street at a broken speed, limping, parched, voiceless, flecked with blood and foam, snapping feebly at the showering rocks, but still indomitably a little ahead of the hunt.  There was no yelp left in him—­he was too thoroughly winded for that,—­but in his brilliant and despairing eyes shone the agony of a cry louder than the tongue of a dog could utter:  “O master!  O all the god I know!  Where are you in my mortal need?”

Now indeed he had a gauntlet to run; for the street was lined with those who awaited him, while the pursuit grew closer behind.  A number of the hardiest stood squarely in his path, and he hesitated for a second, which gave the opportunity for a surer aim, and many missiles struck him.  “Let him have it now, officer,” said Eugene Bantry, standing with Judge Pike at the policeman’s elbow.  “There’s your chance.”

But before the revolver could be discharged, Respectability had begun to run again, hobbling on three legs and dodging feebly.  A heavy stone struck him on the shoulder and he turned across the street, making for the “National House” corner, where the joyful clerk brandished his pitchfork.  Going slowly, he almost touched the pimply one as he passed, and the clerk, already rehearsing in his mind the honors which should follow the brave stroke, raised the tines above the little dog’s head for the coup de grace.  They did not descend, and the daring youth failed of fame as the laurel almost embraced his brows.  A hickory walking-stick was thrust between his legs; and he, expecting to strike, received a blow upon the temple sufficient for his present undoing and bedazzlement.  He went over backwards, and the pitchfork (not the thing to hold poised on high when one is knocked down) fell with the force he had intended for Respectability upon his own shin.