lete run of the castle whenever the door was opened. To
remedy this, Nosey increased the one and curtailed the other, and the
Gothic oak-painted windows and door flew from their positions to make
way for modern plate-glass in rich pea-green casements, and a door of
similar hue. The battlements, however, remained, and two wooden guns
guarded a brace of chimney-pots and commanded the wings of the castle,
one whereof was formed into a green-, the other into a gig-house.

The peals of a bright brass-handled bell at a garden-gate, surmounted by
a holly-bush with the top cut into the shape of a fox, announced their
arrival to the inhabitants of "Rosalinda Castle," and on entering they
discovered young Nosey in the act of bobbing for goldfish, in a
pond about the size of a soup-basin; while Nosey senior, a fat,
stupid-looking fellow, with a large corporation and a bottle nose,
attired in a single-breasted green cloth coat, buff waistcoat, with drab
shorts and continuations, was reposing, _sub tegmine fagi_, in a sort
of tea-garden arbour, overlooking a dung-heap, waiting their arrival to
commence an attack upon the sparrows which were regaling thereon. At
one end of the garden was a sort of temple, composed of oyster-shells,
containing a couple of carrier-pigeons, with which Nosey had intended
making his fortune, by the early information to be acquired by them: but
"there is many a slip," as Jorrocks would say.

Greetings being over, and Jorrocks having paid a visit to the larder,
and made up a stock of provisions equal to a journey through the
Wilderness, they adjourned to the yard to get the other dog, and the
man to carry the game--or rather, the prog, for the former was but
problematical. He was a character, a sort of chap of all work, one, in
short, "who has no objection to make himself generally useful"; but if
his genius had any decided bent, it was, perhaps, an inclination towards
sporting.

Having to act the part of groom and gamekeeper during the morning,
and butler and footman in the afternoon, he was attired in a sort of
composition dress, savouring of the different characters performed. He
had on an old white hat, a groom's fustian stable-coat cut down into a
shooting-jacket, with a whistle at the button-hole, red plush smalls,
and top-boots.

There is nothing a cockney delights in more than aping a country
gentleman, and Browne fancied himself no bad hand at it; indeed, since
his London occupation was gone, h