( Dickens The Pickwick papers ) 'Here you are, sir,' shouted a strange specimen of the human race, ina sackcloth coat, and apron of the same, who, with a brass labeland number round his neck, looked as if he were catalogued in somecollection of rarities.
There was a red brick house with a small pavedcourtyard in front, which anybody might have known belonged to theattorney; and there was, moreover, another red brick house with Venetianblinds, and a large brass door-plate with a very legible announcementthat it belonged to the surgeon.
Cladin a tight suit of corduroy, spangled with brass buttons of a veryconsiderable size, he at first stood at the door astounded anduncertain; but by degrees, the impression that his mother must havesuffered some personal damage pervaded his partially developed mind, andconsidering Mr. Pickwick as the aggressor, he set up an appallingand semi-earthly kind of howling, and butting forward with his head,commenced assailing that immortal gentleman about the back and legs,with such blows and pinches as the strength of his arm, and the violenceof his excitement, allowed.
You turn a little to the right when you get to theend of the town; it stands by itself, some little distance off the highroad, with the name on a brass plate on the gate.
( Dickens The Pickwick papers ) They found the house, read the brass plate, walked round the wall, andstopped at that portion of it which divided them from the bottom of thegarden.
( Dickens The Pickwick papers ) Captain Boldwig was a little fierce man in a stiff black neckerchief andblue surtout, who, when he did condescend to walk about his property,did it in company with a thick rattan stick with a brass ferrule, and agardener and sub-gardener with meek faces, to whom (the gardeners, notthe stick) Captain Boldwig gave his orders with all due grandeur andferocity; for Captain Boldwig's wife's sister had married a marquis, andthe captain's house was a villa, and his land 'grounds,' and it was allvery high, and mighty, and great.
( Dickens The Pickwick papers ) 'That was a game, wasn't it?' said one of the gentlemen, in a brown coatand brass buttons, inky drabs, and bluchers, at the conclusion of someinaudible relation of his previous evening's adventures.
Over this, he mounted a longwaistcoat of a broad pink-striped pattern, and over that again, awide-skirted green coat, ornamented with large brass buttons, whereofthe two which garnished the waist, were so far apart, that no man hadever beheld them both at the same time.