on a most becoming steed--a great raking, raw-boned chestnut, with a
twisted snaffle in his mouth, decorated with a faded yellow silk front,
a nose-band, and an ivory ring under his jaws, for the double purpose
of keeping the reins together and Jorrocks's teeth in his head--the nag
having flattened the noses and otherwise damaged the countenances of his
two previous owners, who had not the knack of preventing him tossing
his head in their faces. The saddle--large and capacious--made on the
principle of the impossibility of putting a round of beef upon a pudding
plate--was "spick and span new," as was an enormous hunting-whip, whose
iron-headed hammer he clenched in a way that would make the blood curdle
in one's veins, to see such an instrument in the hands of a misguided
man.

[Footnote 7: The late Mr. Wilkinson, commonly called "Matty Wilkinson,"
master of the Hurworth foxhounds, was a rigid adherent of the
"d----n-all-dandy" school of sportsmen.]

"Punctuality is the politeness of princes," said Mr. Jorrocks, raising a
broad-brimmed, lowish-crowned hat, as high as a green hunting-cord which
tackled it to his yellow waistcoat by a fox's tooth would allow, as he
came upon the Yorkshireman at the corner. "My soul's on fire and eager
for the chase! By heavens, I declare I've dreamt of nothing else all
night, and the worst of it is, that in a par-ox-ism of delight, when
I thought I saw the darlings running into the warmint, I brought Mrs.
J---- such a dig in the side as knocked her out of bed, and she swears
she'll go to Jenner, and the court for the protection of injured ribs!
But come--jump up--where's your nag? Binjimin, you blackguard, where are
you? The fog is blinding me, I declare! Binjimin, I say! Binjimin! you
willain, where are you?"