He heard footsteps coming; the door was opened, and the dogs poured out upon him--spaniels, terriers, lurchers, greyhounds, and a big Gordon setter--barking at him, leaping against him, sniffing his calves.

Taffy kept them at bay as best he could and waved his letter at a wall-eyed man in a dirty yellow waistcoat, who looked down from the doorstep but did not offer to call them off.
"Any answer ?" asked the wall-eyed man.
Taffy could not say.

The man took the letter and went to inquire, leaving him alone with the dogs.
It seemed an age before he reappeared, having in the interval slipped a dirty livery coat over his yellow waistcoat.

"The Squire says you're to come in." Taffy and the dogs poured together into a high, stone-flagged hall; then through a larger hall and a long dark corridor.

The footman's coat, for want of a loop, had been hitched on a peg by its collar, and stuck out behind his neck in the most ludicrous manner; but he shuffled ahead so fast that Taffy, tripping and stumbling among the dogs, had barely time to observe this before a door was flung open and he stood blinking in a large room full of sunlight.
"Hallo! Here's the parson's bantam!" The room had four high, bare windows through which the afternoon sunshine streamed on the carpet.