wetting his own whistle with a pint of half-and-half, he again journeyed
onward, ruminating on the uncertainty and mutability of all earthly
affairs, the comparative merits of stag-, fox-, and hare-hunting, and
the necessity of getting rid of the day somehow or other in the country.

[Footnote 13: He might well be called a "travelling fox," for it was
said he had just travelled down from Herring's, in the New Road, by the
Bromley stage.]

Suddenly his reverie was interrupted by the discharge of a gun in the
field adjoining the hedge along which he was passing, and the boisterous
whirring of a great cock-pheasant over his head, which caused his horse
to start and stop short, and to nearly pitch Jorrocks over his head. The
bird was missed, but the sportsman's dog dashed after it, with all the
eagerness of expectation, regardless of the cracks of the whip--the
"comes to heel," and "downs to charge" of the master. Jorrocks pulled
out his hunting telescope, and having marked the bird down with the
precision of a billiard-table keeper, rode to the gate to acquaint the
shooter with the fact, when to his infinite amazement he discovered his
friend, Nosey Browne (late of "The Surrey"), who, since his affairs had
taken the unfortunate turn mentioned in the last paper, had given up
hunting and determined to confine himself to shooting only. Nosey,
however, was no great performer, as 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.