MR. SPONGE'S SPOUTING TOUR. 7 



Sponge, shot ont of an omnibus at the sign of the Cat and Com- 

 passes, in the lull rurality of grass country, sprinkled with fallows 

 and turnip-fields. We should state that this unwonted journey 

 was a desire to pay a visit to Mr. Benjamin Buckram, the horse- 

 dealer's farm at Scampley, distant some mile and a half from where 

 he was set down, a space that he now purposed travelling on foot. 

 Mr. Benjamin Buckram was a small horse-dealer, — small, at 

 least, when he was buying, though great when he was selling. It 

 would do a youngster good to see Ben filling the two capacities. 

 He dealt in second hand, that is to say, past mark of mouth 

 horses ; but on the present occasion Mr. Sponge sought his ser- 

 vices in the capacity of a letter rather than a seller of horses. Mr. 

 Sponge wanted to job a couple of plausible-looking horses, with 

 the option of buying them, provided he (Mr. Sponge) could sell 

 them for more than he would have to give Mr. Buckram, exclu- 

 sive of the hire. Mr. Buckram's job price, we should say, was as 

 near twelve pounds a mouth, containing twenty-eight days, as he 

 could screw, the hirer, of course, keeping the animals. 



Scampley is one of those pretty little suburban farms, peculiar 

 to the north and northwest side of London — farms varying from 

 fifty to a hundred acres of well-manured, gravelly soil ; each farm 

 with its picturesque little buildings, consisting of small, honey- 

 suckled, rose-entwined brick houses, with small, flat, pan-tiled 

 roofs, and lattice-windows ; and, hard by, a large haystack, three 

 times the size of the house, or a desolate barn, half as big as all 

 the rest of the buildings. From the smallness of the holdings, the 

 farm-houses are dotted about as thickly, and at such varying dis- 

 tances from the roads, as to look like inferior " villas " falling out 

 of rank ; most of them have a half-smart, half-seedy sort of look. 



The rustics who cultivate them, or rather look after them, are 

 neither exactly town nor country. They have the- clownish dress 

 and boorish gait of the regular " chaws," with a good deal of the 

 quick, suspicious, sour saucincss of the low London resident. If 

 you can get an answer from them at all, it is generally delivered 

 in such a way as to show that the answerer thinks you are what 

 they call " chaffing them," asking them what you know. 



These farms serve the double purpose of purveyors to the Lon- 

 don stables, and hospitals for sick, overworked, or unsaleable 

 horses. All the great job-masters and horse-dealers have these re- 

 treats in the country, and the smaller ones pretend to have, from 

 whence, in due course, they can draw any sort of an animal a cus- 

 tomer may want, just as little cellarless wine-merchants can get 

 you any sort of- wine from real establishments — if you only give 

 them time. 



There was a good deal of mystery about Scampley. It was 

 sometimes in the hands of Mr. Benjamin Buckram, sometimes in 



