Chapter XXXIV. A FIRE IN FAIRPORT
Chapter XXXV. BILLY AND THE ITALIAN
Chapter XXXVI. DANDY THE TRAMP
Chapter XXXVII. THE END OF MY STORY




BEAUTIFUL JOE

CHAPTER I ONLY A CUR

MY name is Beautiful Joe, and I am a brown dog of medium size.
I am not called Beautiful Joe because I am a beauty. Mr. Morris,
the clergyman, in whose family I have lived for the last twelve
years, says that he thinks I must be called Beautiful Joe for the
same reason that his grandfather, down South, called a very ugly
colored slave-lad Cupid, and his mother Venus.

I do not know what he means by that, but when he says it, people
always look at me and smile. I know that I am not beautiful, and I
know that I am not a thoroughbred. I am only a cur.

When my mistress went every year to register me and pay my tax,
and the man in the office asked what breed I was, she said part
fox-terrier and part bull-terrier; but he always put me down a cur. I
don't think she liked having him call me a cur; still, I have heard
her say that she preferred curs, for they have more character than
well-bred dogs. Her father said that she liked ugly dogs for the
same reason that a nobleman at the court of a certain king did