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.