'Well, my poor fellow, you seem to like that!'
The dog curled his tail and licked his lips.
'What's your name? You don't know, nor where you were born. You're as ignorant as Topsy.'
The dog sought the ground with his eyes.
'I must give you a name. Suppose I call you Chance, to mark how I found you; or Bran, like the dog in Ossian; or Hector—no, that's too bumptious a name, and you're no bully.'
The dog wisely shook his head, as if he looked on the idea of bullyism with pity.
'Let me see; egad, I'll naturalize you! I think you have a very Irish face—an honest, open, grateful face—and I'll call you Pat.'
The dog wagged his tail joyfully, stood on his hind legs, and stretched out a paw.
'Wonderful creature! can it be that I have hit on your name? Well, Pat'—again the tail wagged—'if you belonged to a rich family you would be housed, perhaps, in that hospital for indisposed gentlemen of your breed I see advertised on a kiosk near the Palais Royal; but, because you really want a friend and a crust, you are left without either. That's the way with the world, Pat,[5] and you're a vagabond, though goodness knows you're ugly enough to be a pet. I declare you're as ill-favoured as any pug I ever met sitting on a Brussels hearthrug, if it were not for that face.'
The dog gave an assenting bark.