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!"

"Bow-wow!" answered Mop, joyously.

"If there be any truth in the doctrine of metempsychosis," faltered
Gentleman Waife, "if the great Newton could have transmigrated into
that incomparable animal! Newton, Newton!" To that name Mop made
no obeisance, but, evidently still restless, walked round the room,
smelling at every corner, and turning to look back with inquisitive
earnestness at his new master.

"He does not seem to catch at the name of Newton," said Waife, trying it
thrice again, and vainly, "and yet he seems extremely well versed in the
principle of gravit