may be inferred, when we state that
he had been in pursuit of the above-mentioned cock-pheasant ever since
daybreak, and after firing thirteen shots at him had not yet touched a
feather.

His dog was of the right sort--for Nosey at least--and hope deferred had
not made his heart sick; on the contrary, he dashed after his bird for
the thirteenth time with all the eagerness he displayed on the first.
"Let me have a crack at him," said Jorrocks to Nosey, after their mutual
salutations were over. "I know where he is, and I think I can floor
him." Browne handed the gun to Jorrocks, who, giving up his hunter in
exchange, strode off, and having marked his bird accurately, he kicked
him up out of a bit of furze, and knocked him down as "dead as a
door-nail." By that pheasant's tail hangs the present one.

Now Nosey Browne and Jorrocks were old friends, and Nosey's affairs
having gone crooked, why of course, like most men in a similar
situation, he was all the better for it; and while his creditors were
taking twopence-halfpenny in the pound, he was taking his diversion on
his wife's property, which a sagacious old father-in-law had secured to
the family in the event of such a contingency as a failure happening; so
knowing Jorrock's propensity for sports, and being desirous of chatting
over all his gallant doings with "The Surrey," shortly after the
above-mentioned day he dispatched a "twopenny," offering him a day's
shooting on his property in Surrey, adding, that he hoped he would dine
with him after. Jorrocks being invited himself, with a freedom peculiar
to fox-hunters, invited his friend the Yorkshireman, and visiting his
armoury, selected him a regular shot-scatterer of a gun, capable of
carrying ten yards on every side.

At the appointed hour on the appointed morning, the Yorkshireman
appeared in Great Coram Street, where he found Mr. Jorrocks in the
parlour in the act of settling himself into a new spruce green cut-away
gambroon butler's pantry-jacket, with pockets equal to holding
a powder-flask each, his lower man being attired in tight drab
stocking-net pantaloons, and Hessian boots with large tassels--a
striking contrast to the fustian pocket-and-all-pocket jackets marked
with game-bag strap, and shot-belt, and the weather-beaten many-coloured
breeches and gaiters, and hob-nail shoes, that compose the equipment of
a shooter in Yorkshire. Mr. Jorrocks not keeping any "sporting dogs," as
the tax-papers call them, h