`` He 's a civil young chap now , and that 's more than he 'll be long if he bides with thee . '' Grimes laughed , for he took that for a compliment . `` I wish I were a keeper , '' said Tom , `` to live in such a beautiful place , and wear green velveteens , and have a real dog-whistle at my button , like you . '' The keeper laughed ; he was a kind-hearted fellow enough . `` Let well alone , lad , and ill too at times . Thy life 's safer than mine at all events , eh , Mr. Grimes ? '' And Grimes laughed again , and then the two men began talking , quite low . Tom could hear , though , that it was about some poaching fight ; and at last Grimes said surlily , `` Hast thou anything against me ? '' `` Not now . '' `` Then do n't ask me any questions till thou hast , for I am a man of honour . '' And at that they both laughed again , and thought it a very good joke . And by this time they were come up to the great iron gates in front of the house ; and Tom stared through them at the rhododendrons and azaleas , which were all in flower ; and then at the house itself , and wondered how many chimneys there were in it , and how long ago it was built , and what was the man 's name that built it , and whether he got much money for his job ? These last were very difficult questions to answer . For Harthover had been built at ninety different times , and in nineteen different styles , and looked as if somebody had built a whole street of houses of every imaginable shape , and then stirred them together with a spoon . For the attics were Anglo-Saxon . The third door Norman . The second Cinque-cento . The first-floor Elizabethan . The right wing Pure Doric . The centre Early English , with a huge portico copied from the Parthenon .
The left XXXXX pure Boeotian , which the country folk admired most of all , became it was just like the new barracks in the town , only three times as big .
Anglo-Saxon Cinque-cento Elizabethan English Grimes Parthenon Tom rhododendrons velveteens wing