Excerpt.... "To make a dogsnose," the publican explained, "you spices the ale, so. You laces it with a dash of rum, thus, then you proceeds to pour it into this yere metal cone, this way"—he crossed to the fireplace—"and shoves it in among the coals to mull."

"A great comfort is dogsnose," added Mr. Fright, "especially of a Sunday after church. You clears the vimmen off to church, and then you has the dogsnose."

Presently he took the cone from behind the bars of the grate, and filled the glasses with mulled beer, distributing the same to his guests.

With rolled-up shirt sleeves exposing brawny arms, a portly waistcoat, leather breeches, and top boots, this publican might well have posed for a portrait of John Bull, and yet his tavern, "The Fox under the Hill," had other associations, accounting for the landlord's artful sideways grin and a certain glint of humorous foxiness. Moreover, a lifelong devotion to rum had made him more ruddy than sunburned, his nose inclined to blossom, his eyes to water, and his hands to tremble. "A short life, and a merry one!" so Mr. Fright pledged the company. His guests appeared to be pleased with the sentiment, excepting only his brother, Mr. James Fright, the bargee, who crouched drunk in his window corner. Brief life was his portion also, but a diet of gin, instead of making ruddy the face of man, turns his complexion blue. The stuff is called blue ruin.