"LOW LIFE." 19

washing going on, at some stage of the process, his mother
did say that they had already as many dogs as there was bran
for. And his father, coming in from his last odd job, told the
boy to get along, and asked him reproachfully if his father's
tdog, Bully, a lame, cantankerous old bull-terrier of dubious
origin, and his mother's birds-canaries and goldfinches,
which were her "fad "-were not, together with his numerous
little brothers and sisters, pets enough for him ?
 But Jack was his father and mother's own boy, and, as it
was rather a prosperous time with them, they could not find it
in their hearts to baulk him in an inclination with which they
had really so much sympathy. So Prince was suffered to
become a member of the happy-go-lucky family. The only
serious opposition he met with came from his dog-brother,
Bully, who assumed a hostile attitude of tooth and claw.
However, Bully was old and incapable, so that a tolerably
active young dog could manage to escape from the execution
of his menaces. Besides, a street accident soon afterwards
disposed of the canine patriarch, to the unaffected grief of his
master.
 Prince grew to dog's estate in the household, sharing its
very fluctuating, but inevitably downward-tending, fortunes,
scrambling with it for a livelihood-feasting the one day,
fasting the next-receiving a cuff, or a spendthrift dole, as
Shumour and the family purse inclined.
 Prince acquired stores of knowledge and experience of a
mixed sort at this stage of his existence. He was accustomed
to go everywhere with Jack in his spare time-above all, on his
half-holidays. Prince enlarged his acquaintance with London;
he was not only a regular attendant on all the bird sales and