A stranger would have thought that Mr.Bragg, and not 'Mr.Puff,' as Bragg called him, kept the hounds.

Mr.Puffington took it pretty quietly at first, Bragg inundating him with what they did at the Duke of Downeybird's, Lord Reynard's, and the other great places in which he had lived, till he almost made Puff believe that such treatment was a necessary consequence of hound-keeping.

Moreover, the cost was heavy, and the promised subscriptions were almost wholly imaginary; even if they had been paid, they would not have covered a quarter of the expense Mr.Bragg ran him to; and worst of all, there was an increasing instead of a diminishing expenditure.

Trust a servant for keeping things up to the mark.
All things, however, have an end, and Mr.Bragg began to get to the end of Mr.Puff's patience.

As Puff got older he got fonder of his five-pound notes, and began to scrutinize bills and ask questions; to be, as Mr.Bragg said, 'very little of the gentleman'; Bragg, however, being quite one of your 'make-hay-while-the-sun-shines' sort, and knowing too well the style of man to calculate on a lengthened duration of office, just put on the steam of extravagance, and seemed inclined to try how much he could spend for his master.