"But his name isn't Fido—it's Prince. Haven't you ever noticed that the smaller and snarlier and more worthless a dog is, the surer it is to be called Prince?"
"Perhaps that's the way with princes," said Jimmy, who had more than once uttered the most extreme democratic sentiments, expressing contempt for all royalty, merely because it was royalty. "But I don't know,—I never saw one. At any rate, I didn't know the dog's name, and I had to call him something. I think you'll find that everything else is correctly stated."
I ventured to suggest that it didn't make much difference whether the dog's name was right or wrong, in a poem.
"Oh, yes, it does," said Jimmy. "I always try to have my poems true to life; and I shall change that, and make it Prince—that is, after I have inquired of Joe, and found out that the dog's name really is Prince. I am glad you spoke about it."
Then he continued the reading.
| "In two small willow baskets— One white, the other brown— Their mothers put the dinners up Which they were to put down. "They'd dug their bait the night before,— The worms were live and thick; Their bamboo poles were long and strong, Their hooks were Limerick." |
"My brother Fay says there isn't a Limerick hook in this whole town," said Ned.
"You can buy plenty of them at Karl's—two for a cent," said Jimmy.
"Oh, no, you can't," said Ned. "Fay says you can't get a Limerick hook this side of New York."
"What is a Limerick hook?" said I, for I was not much of a fisherman.