“Here’s Browsem, uncle,” I said.
“Show him up; show him up,” cried my uncle, who would not have accorded more attention to an ambassador than he did to his keeper—that gentleman being prime minister to his pleasures.
Browsem was shown up—a process which did not become the keeper at all, for he came in delicately as to pace, not appearance, and held his red cotton handkerchief in his hand, as if in doubt whether to employ it in dabbing his damp brow, or to spread upon the carpet for fear that his boots might soil the brightness.
“Now Browsem,” cried the old gentleman, as the keeper was pulling his forelock to Miss Jenny, thereby making the poor fellow start and stammer. “Now Browsem, whom have you caught?”
“Caught, sir? No one, sir, only the cat, sir. Ponto run her down, but she skretched one of his eyes a’most out.”
“Cat; what cat?” said my uncle, leaning forward, with a hand upon each arm of the chair.
“Why, you see, sir,” said Browsem, confidentially, “there’s a dodge in it;” and then the man turned round and winked at me.
“Confound you; go on,” cried my uncle in a most exasperated tone of voice, when Browsem backed against Jenny’s little marqueterie work-table, and, oversetting it, sent bobbins, tapes, reels, wools, silks, and, crochet and tatting apparatus into irremediable chaos.
“There, never mind that trash,” shouted the old man; “speak up at once.”
“Well, sir,” said Browsem, “they’ve been a-dodgin’ of me.”