Pappy was beginning to get very tired of sitting in his backyard in Austin, while all the twenty-somethings partied their lives away down the block, and of having nothing to do: once or twice he visited the library stacks at the University, but the books had no pictures or conversations in it, "and what is the use of a book," thought Pappy, "without pictures or conversations."
So he was considering in his own mind (as well as he could for high carb meals made him sleepy and stupid), whether surfing the Internet would be worth the trouble of getting up and going to his office, when suddenly his White Rat Terrier ran close by him.
There was nothing so very remarkable in that Terrier dog nor did Pappy think it so much out of the way to hear the Terrier say to itself, "Oh dear, Oh dear! I shall be too late! (when I thought about this later it occurred to me odd that a Terrier should not be in hurry up, but hey, even puppies can suffer from driver behavior of the neurotic sort; but when the Terrier actually took a watch out of its waistcoat pocket, you had to wonder who carries watches anymore, not to mention pocket watches, but Pappy jumped up and burning with curiosity about a Terrier with a waistcoat-pocket and a watch to take out of it, saw it pop down a small rat-hole under the patio tiles in the backyard.
The Terrier went straight down the rat-hole and Pappy went after it, never considering how in the world he was to get out again.
The rat-hole went straight on like a tunnel for some way in the direction of Arroyo Seco, a dry creek running through the neighborhood, and then dipped suddenly that Pappy had not a moment to think about stopping himself before he found himself falling down what seemed to be a very deep well.
