Mop was equally mute to Aristotle. He pricked up his cars at Plato, perhaps because the sound was not wholly dissimilar from that of Ponto,—a name of which he might have had vague reminiscences. The Romans not having cultivated an original philosophy, though they contrived to produce great men without it, Waife passed by that perished people. He crossed to China, and tried Confucius. Mop had evidently never heard of him.
“I am at the end of my list, so far as the wise men are concerned,” said Waife, wiping his forehead. “If Mop were to distinguish himself by valour, one would find heroes by the dozen,—Achilles, and Hector, and Julius Caesar, and Pompey, and Bonaparte, and Alexander the Great, and the Duke of Marlborough. Or, if he wrote poetry, we could fit him to a hair. But wise men certainly are scarce, and when one has hit on a wise man’s name it is so little known to the vulgar that it would carry no more weight with it than Spot or Toby. But necessarily some name the dog must have, and take to sympathetically.”
Sophy meanwhile had extracted the dominos from Waife’s bundle, and with the dominos an alphabet and a multiplication-table in printed capitals. As the Comedian’s one eye rested upon the last, he exclaimed, “But after all, Mop’s great strength will probably be in arithmetic, and the science of numbers is the root of all wisdom. Besides, every man, high and low, wants to make a fortune, and associations connected with addition and multiplication are always pleasing. Who, then, is the sage at computation most universally known? Unquestionably Cocker! He must take to that, Cocker, Cocker” (commandingly),—“C-o-c-k-e-r” (with persuasive sweetness).
Mop looked puzzled; he put his head first on one side, then on the other.
SOPHY (with mellifluous endearment).—“Cocker, good Cocker; Cocker dear!”
BOTH.—“Cocker, Cocker, Cocker!”
Excited and bewildered, Mop put up his head, and gave vent to his perplexities in a long and lugubrious howl, to which certainly none who heard it could have desired addition or multiplication.
“Stop this instant, sir,—stop; I shoot you! You are dead,—down!” Waife adjusted his staff to his shoulder gun-wise; and at the word of command, “Down,” Mop was on his side, stiff and lifeless. “Still,” said Waife, “a name connected with profound calculation would be the most appropriate; for instance, Sir Isaac—”
Before the Comedian could get out the word Newton, Mop had sprung to his four feet, and, with wagging tail and wriggling back, evinced a sense of beatified recognition.
“Astounding!” said Waife, rather awed. “Can it be the name? Impossible. Sir Isaac, Sir Isaac!”