slightly altered tone, "will excuse it."

Mr. George would be charmed. But the Doctor, standing staring at him
open-eyed for a moment, demanded in an audible whisper--

"Who the deuce is that?"

"Mr. George Hawker, Doctor, from the Woodlands. I should have thought
you had met him before."

"Never," replied the Doctor. "And I don't--and I mean I have had the
honour of hearing of him from Stockbridge. Excuse me, sir, a moment. I
am going to take a liberty. I am a phrenologist." He advanced across
the room to where George sat, laid his hand on his forehead, and
drawing it lightly and slowly back through his black curls, till he
reached the nape of his neck, ejaculated a "Hah!" which might mean
anything, and retired to the fire.

He then began filling his pipe, but before it was filled set it
suddenly on the table, and drawing from his coat pocket a cardboard
box, exhibited to the delighted eyes of the vicar that beautiful little
brown-mottled snipe, which now bears the name of Colonel Sabine, and
having lit his pipe, set to work with a tiny penknife and a pot of
arsenical soap, all of which were disinterred from the vast coat-pocket
before mentioned, to reduce the plump little bird to a loose mass of
skin and feathers, fit to begin again his new life in death in a
glass-case in some collector's museum.

George Hawker had sat very uneasy since the Doctor's phrenological
examination, and every now and then cast fierce angry glances at him