Then he tells me that my father, who had treated mother so bad, was a great and noble gentleman from London.  “Your father had twenty-two registered ancestors, had your father,” old Guardian says, “and in him was the best bull-terrier blood of England, the most ancientest, the most royal; the winning ‘blue-ribbon’ blood, that breeds champions.  He had sleepy pink eyes, and thin pink lips, and he was as white all over as his own white teeth, and under his white skin you could see his muscles, hard and smooth, like the links of a steel chain.  When your father stood still, and tipped his nose in the air, it was just as though he was saying, ’Oh, yes, you common dogs and men, you may well stare.  It must be a rare treat for you Colonials to see a real English royalty.’  He certainly was pleased with hisself, was your father.  He looked just as proud and haughty as one of them stone dogs in Victoria Park—­them as is cut out of white marble.  And you’re like him,” says the old mastiff—­“by that, of course, meaning you’re white, same as him.  That’s the only likeness.  But, you see, the trouble is, Kid—­well, you see, Kid, the trouble is—­your mother--”

“That will do,” I said, for I understood then without his telling me, and I got up and walked away, holding my head and tail high in the air.

But I was, oh, so miserable, and I wanted to see mother that very minute, and tell her that I didn’t care.

Mother is what I am, a street-dog; there’s no royal blood in mother’s veins, nor is she like that father of mine, nor—­and that’s the worst—­she’s not even like me.  For while I, when I’m washed for a fight, am as white as clean snow, she—­and this is our trouble, she—­ my mother, is a black-and-tan.

When mother hid herself from me, I was twelve months old and able to take care of myself, and, as after mother left me, the wharves were never the same, I moved uptown and met the Master.  Before he came, lots of other men-folks had tried to make up to me, and to whistle me home.  But they either tried patting me or coaxing me with a piece of meat; so I didn’t take to ’em.  But one day the Master pulled me out of a street-fight by the hind-legs, and kicked me good.

“You want to fight, do you?” says he.  “I’ll give you all the fighting you want!” he says, and he kicks me again.  So I knew he was my Master, and I followed him home.  Since that day I’ve pulled off many fights for him, and they’ve brought dogs from all over the province to have a go at me, but up to that night none, under thirty pounds, had ever downed me.

But that night, so soon as they carried me into the ring, I saw the dog was over-weight, and that I was no match for him.  It was asking too much of a puppy.  The Master should have known I couldn’t do it.  Not that I mean to blame the Master, for when sober, which he sometimes was, though not, as you might say, his habit, he was most kind to me, and let me out to find food, if I could get it, and only kicked me when I didn’t pick him up at night and lead him home.