16 "LOW LIFE."
knowing it; for his truth and honesty, unless under over-
whelming temptations, are among his best claims on our
regard. Dog of the people as he is, he is not without distin-
guished 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 pro-
clivities, he had an aristocratic, nay, a royal designation. My
own observation tends to prove that this inconsistent appel-
lation 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