"LOW LIFE." 15

capable of looking after number one-the only number which
he feels himself called upon to reckon; in fact, poor fellow,
he has been accustomed to that reckoning, and to dwelling
upon it with dull, degrading reiteration from his earliest years.
 If you could ask himself, he would tell you decidedly that
he has no relations, and he would imply with an inarticulate
murmur, between a grunt and a growl, that the question is
one of perfect indifference to him; he does not mind the priva-
tion in the least-he is sufficient for himself.
 "He cares for nobody, no, not he,
 If nobody cares for him."
 For that matter, ancestors, contemporaries, descendants
would have been a considerable incumbrance to him in his
circumstances, which he will not hesitate to admit have been
for the most part precarious, and in what has usually been his
hand-to-mouth mode of picking up a living.
 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