his gifted
creature. Get out the dominos."

"What is his name?"

"Ha! that is the first consideration. What shall be his name?"

"Has he not one already?"

"Yes,--trivial and unattractive,--Mop! In private life it might pass.
But in public life--give a dog a bad name and hang him. Mop, indeed!"

Therewith Mop, considering himself appealed to, rose and stretched
himself.

"Right," said Gentleman Waife; "stretch yourself--you decidedly require
it."

CHAPTER V.

Mop becomes a personage.--Much thought is bestowed on the verbal
dignities, without which a personage would become a mop.--The
importance of names is apparent in all history.--If Augustus had
called himself king, Rome would have risen against him as a Tarquin;
so he remained a simple equestrian, and modestly called himself
Imperator.--Mop chooses his own title in a most mysterious manner,
and ceases to be Mop.

"The first noticeable defect in your name of Mop," said Gentleman Waife,
"is, as you yourself denote, the want of elongation. Monosyllables are
not imposing, and in striking compositions their meaning is elevated by
periphrasis; that is to say, Sophy, that what before was a short truth,
an elegant author elaborates into a long stretch."

"Certainly," said Sophy, thoughtfully; "I don't think the name of Mop
would draw! Still he is very like a mop."

"For that reason the name degrades him the more, and lowers him from an
intellectual phenomenon to a physical attribute, which is vulgar. I hope
that that dog will enable us to rise in the scale of being. For whereas
we in acting could only command a threepenny audience--reserved seats a
shilling--he may aspire to half-crowns and dress-boxes; that is, if we
can hit on a name which inspires respect. Now, although the dog is big,
it is not by his size that he is to become famous, or we might call him
Hercules or Goliath; neither is it by his beauty, or Adonis would not
be unsuitable. It is by his superior sagacity and wisdom. And there I am
puzzled to find his prototype amongst mortals; for, perhaps, it may be
my ignorance of history--"

"You ignorant, indeed, Grandfather!"

"But considering the innumerable millions who have lived on the earth,
it is astonishing how few I can call to mind who have left behind them a
proverbial renown for wisdom. There is, indeed, Solomon, but he fell
off at the last; and as he belongs to sacred history, we must not take
a liberty with his