“Oh! gentlemen, gentlemen,” exclaimed he, “I’m so ’appy to see you—­so werry ’appy you carn’t think,” holding out both hands to the foremost, who happened to be Nimrod; “this is werry kind of you, for I declare it’s six to a minute.  ’Ow are you, Mr. Nimrod?  Most proud to see you at my humble crib.  Well, Stubbs, my boy, ’ow do you do?  Never knew you late in my life,” giving him a hearty slap on the back.  “Mr. Spiers, I’m werry ’appy to see you.  You are just what a sporting publisher ought to be—­punctuality itself.  Now, gentlemen, dispose of your tiles, and come upstairs to Mrs. J——­, and let’s get you introduced.”  “I fear we are late, Mr. Jorrocks,” observed Nimrod, advancing past the staircase end to hang up his hat on a line of pegs against the wall.

“Not a bit of it,” replied Mr. Jorrocks—­“not a bit of it—­quite the contrary—­you are the first, in fact!”

“Indeed!” replied Nimrod, eyeing a table full of hats by where he stood—­“why here are as many hats as would set up a shop.  I really thought I’d got into Beaver (Belvoir) Castle by mistake!”

“Haw! haw! haw! werry good, Mr. Happerley, werry good indeed—­I owes you one.”

“I thought it was a castor-oil mill,” rejoined Mr. Spiers.

“Haw! haw! haw! werry good, Mr. Spiers, werry good indeed—­owes you one also—­but I see what you’re driving at.  You think these hats have a coconut apiece belonging to them upstairs.  No such thing I assure you; no such thing.  The fact is, they are what I’ve won at warious times of the members of our hunt, and as I’ve got you great sporting coves dining with me, I’m a-going to set them out on my sideboard, just as racing gents exhibit their gold and silver cups, you know.  Binjimin!  I say, Binjimin! you blackguard,” holloaing down the kitchen stairs, “why don’t you set out the castors as I told you? and see you brush them well!” “Coming, sir, coming, sir!” replied Benjamin, from below, who at that moment was busily engaged, taking advantage of Betsey’s absence, in scooping marmalade out of a pot with his thumb.  “There’s a good lot of them,” said Mr. Jorrocks, resuming the conversation, “four, six, eight, ten, twelve, thirteen—­all trophies of sporting prowess.  Real good hats.  None o’ your nasty gossamers, or dog-hair ones.  There’s a tile!” said he, balancing a nice new white one with green rims on the tip of his finger.  “I won that in a most miraculous manner.  A most wonderful way, in fact.  I was driving to Croydon one morning in my four-wheeled one-’oss chay, and just as I got to Lilleywhite, the blacksmith’s, below Brixton Hill, they had thrown up a drain—­a ‘gulph’ I may call it—­across the road for the purpose of repairing the gas-pipe—­I was rayther late as it was, for our ’ounds are werry punctual, and there was nothing for me but either to go a mile and a half about, or drive slap over the gulph.  Well, I looked at it, and the more I looked at it the less I liked it; but just as I was thinking I had seen enough of it, and was going