Not that he is a dog of no calling, or that he merely works on the job principle. You may notice that he has a collar round his neck, and is therefore of sufficient consequence to own a master. Indeed, he has nothing of the shirking, hang-dog air, alternating with the savage expression of the dog-tramp or pauper. His very heavy assurance and thorough mastery of the situation altogether contradict his belonging to that grade. He may be low—one of the rudest and surliest of working dogs, but he is still a working dog, a trusty watch in the absence of his master from his place of work, a ratter of some renown. He is, to do him justice, removed from the deepest gulf into which dogs and men can sink. But he is in error on that point of his relations without knowing it; for his truth and honesty, unless under overwhelming temptations, are among his best claims on our regard. Dog of the people as he is, he is not without distinguished kindred. We need not mention his unfortunate great-grand-uncle, who was the avenging shadow over the garret roofs of a certain ruffianly Bill Sykes, and who met the fate which is generally the portion of avenging shadows. He has other claims to a much more distant connection, certainly, but as they are to carry him into the upper regions of society, let them be counted. He has an ancestor in a dog named Trump, who was altogether in a superior position in life, and on his death received the honour of having a monument erected to his memory in the garden of the house at Chiswick which belonged to his attached master, the great painter. Our friend had also a canny Scotch cousin, who bore a part in a famous dialogue delivered in the district of Kyle, in the county of Ayr, and preserved and handed down to posterity. It is time that we recorded our hero’s name, and began to give some particulars of his not uneventful plebeian history. I dare say my readers conjecture that his name was plebeian too, like all the rest about him—that it was “Jim,” or “Ned,” or “Crab,” or “Pickles,” or “Seize ’em,” or “Tear ’em.” Not at all. In spite of his democratic antecedents and proclivities, he had an aristocratic, nay, a royal designation. My own observation tends to prove that this inconsistent appellation was according to a law of human nature. In the various households belonging to the humblest ranks with which he had any acquaintance, there were to be found specimens of the finest, most sonorous titles in the English nomenclature. There was generally a Gussy or a Louie, and there were twice Fredericks and once a Marmaduke. The dog’s first master styled the waif, either in high-reaching ambition or in smouldering satire, “Prince;” and Prince, not President, he is likely to continue till the day of his death.