The slight interregnum between it and his step-collared striped vest (blue stripe on a canary-coloured ground) showed three golden foxes’ heads, acting as studs to his well-washed, neatly plaited shirt; while a sort of careless turn back of the right cuff showed similar ornaments at his wrists.  His single-breasted, cutaway coat was Oxford mixture, with a thin cord binding, and very natty light kerseymere mother-o’-pearl buttoned breeches, met a pair of bright, beautifully fitting, rose-tinted tops, that wrinkled most elegantly down to the Jersey-patterned spur.  He was a remarkably well got up little man, and looked the horseman all over.

As he emerged from the stable, where he had been mastering the ins and outs of the establishment, learning what was allowed and what was not, what had not been found fault with and, therefore, might be presumed upon, and so on, he carried the smart dogskin leather glove of one hand in the other, while the fox’s head of a massive silver-mounted jockey-whip peered from under his arm.  On a ring round the fox’s neck was the following inscription:  ‘FROM JACK BRAGG TO HIS COUSIN DICK.’

Mr. Puffington having drawn up his mail-phaeton, and thrown the ribbons to the active grooms at the horses’ heads in the true coaching style, proceeded to descend from his throne, and had reached the ground ere he was aware of the presence of a stranger.  Seeing him then, he made the sort of half-obeisance of a man that does not know whether he is addressing a gentleman or a servant, or, maybe, a scamp, going about with a prospectus.  Puff had been bit in the matter of some maps in London, and was wary, as all people ought to be, of these birds.

The stranger came sidling up with a half-bow, half-touch of the hat, drawling out: 

‘’Sceuuse me, sir—­’sceuuse me, sir,’ with another half-bow and another half-touch of the hat.  ’I’m Mister Bragg, sir—­Mister Richard Bragg, sir; of whom you have most likely heard.’

‘Bragg—­Richard Bragg,’ repeated our friend, thoughtfully, while he scanned the man’s features, and ran his sporting acquaintance through his mind’s eye.

‘Bragg, Bragg,’ repeated he, without hitting him off.

‘I was huntsman, sir, to my Lord Reynard, sir,’ observed the stranger, with a touch of the hat to each ‘sir.’  ’Thought p’r’aps you might have known his ludship, sir.  Before him, sir, I held office, sir, under the Duke of Downeybird, sir, of Downeybird Castle, sir, in Downeybirdshire, sir.’

‘Indeed!’ replied Mr. Puffington, with a half-bow and a smile of politeness.

‘Hearing, sir, you had taken these Mangeysterne dogs, sir,’ continued the stranger, with rather a significant emphasis on the word ’dogs’—­’hearing, sir, you had taken these Mangeysterne dogs, sir, it occurred to me that possibly I might be useful to you, sir, in your new calling, sir; and if you were of the same opinion, sir, why, sir, I should be glad to negotiate a connexion, sir.’