26 "LOW LIFE."
dulness, and although he had not been weak from deficiency
of food and overcome by the heat-to anything so childish as
catching flies.
 I think it was Sir Edwin Landseer himself who said that
no dog could endure being kept strictly on the chain for a
longer period than three years; that his heart would break, or
his reason give way in the interval.
 I believe Prince was nearly three years Mr. Jerry Noakes
property without either dying or going mad; but then he was
a dog of singular powers of endurance, as I have signified;
besides, after the first few months of his joint experience of
being a gaoler and gaoled, there were modifications introduced
into the system which rendered it more bearable to him.
 Mr. Jerry Noakes discovered that by the sheer force of
habit, and of that defective imagination which prevents some
men and dogs, though driven to extremity, from breaking out
into independent enterprise, Prince, if let loose for a season,
would return doggedly, of his own accord, to his durance on
the expiry of a reasonable time. Therefore, when Mr. Jerry
was himself on duty at the yard, he would free the dog, and
send him out of the gates for a scamper, reflecting with a
grin that he saved Prince's feed that morning-since the dog
was sure to nose out some booty in his outing-as well as
preserved him in good health.
 Even if Prince had, with keen canine sagacity and a
yearning heart, sought out his former home, he would still
have missed his old protector, for, in sinking lower and lower,
the humble street where Jack and his family had dwelt in
Prince's day now knew them no more. The seniors and the
younger children had gravitated without fail to the House;