'I say,' he proceeded, 'Miss Dombey! I could have had him stolen for ten
shillings, if they hadn't given him up: and I would: but they were glad
to get rid of him, I think. If you'd like to have him, he's at the door.
I brought him on purpose for you. He ain't a lady's dog, you know,' said
Mr Toots, 'but you won't mind that, will you?'

In fact, Diogenes was at that moment, as they presently ascertained from
looking down into the street, staring through the window of a hackney
cabriolet, into which, for conveyance to that spot, he had been
ensnared, on a false pretence of rats among the straw. Sooth to say, he
was as unlike a lady's dog as might be; and in his gruff anxiety to get
out, presented an appearance sufficiently unpromising, as he gave short
yelps out of one side of his mouth, and overbalancing himself by the
intensity of every one of those efforts, tumbled down into the straw,
and then sprung panting up again, putting out his tongue, as if he had
come express to a Dispensary to be examined for his health.

But though Diogenes was as ridiculous a dog as one would meet with on
a summer's day; a blundering, ill-favoured, clumsy, bullet-headed
dog, continually acting on a wrong idea that there was an enemy in the
neighbourhood, whom it was meritorious to bark at; and though he was far
from good-tempered, and certainly was not clever, and had hair all over
his eyes, and a comic nose, and an inconsistent tail, and a gruff voice;
he was dearer to Florence, in virtue of that parting remembrance of him,
and that request that he might be taken care of, than the most valuable
and beautiful of his kind. So dear, indeed, was this same ugly Diogenes,
and so welcome to her, that she took the jewelled hand of Mr Toots and
kissed it in her gratitude. And when Diogenes, released, came tearing
up the stairs and bouncing into the room (such a business as there was,
first, to get him out of the cabriolet!), dived under all the furniture,
and wound a long iron chain, that dangled from his neck, round legs
of chairs and tables, and then tugged at it until his eyes became
unnaturally visible, in consequence of their nearly starting out of his
head; and when he growled at Mr Toots, who affected familiarity; and
went pell-mell at Towlinson, morally convinced that he was the enemy
whom he had barked at round the corner all his life and had never seen
yet; Florence was as pleased with him as if he had been a miracle of
discretion.