MR. SPONGE'S SPORTIXG TOUR. 9 



glasses. The whole furniture of the room wasn't worth five 

 pounds. 



Mr. Sponge, being now on the dealing tack, commenced in the 

 poverty-stricken strain adapted to the occasion. Having de- 

 posited his hat on the floor, taken his left leg up to nurse, and 

 given his hair a backward rub with his right hand, he thus com- 

 menced : 



" Xow, Buckram," said he, " I'll tell you how it is. I'm deuced 

 hard-up, — regularly in Short's Gardens. I lost eighteen 'undred 

 on the Derby, and seven on the Leger, the best part of my year's 

 income, indeed : and I just want to hire two or three horses for 

 the season, with the option of buying, if I like ; and if you 

 supply me well, I may be the means of bringing grist to your 

 mill ; you twig, eh ? " 



" Well, Mr. Sponge," replied Buckram, sliding several consecutive 

 half-crowns down the incline plane of his pocket. "Well, Mr. 

 Sponge, I shall be happy to do my best for you. I wish you'd come 

 yesterday, though, as I said before, I jest had two of the neatest 

 nags — a bay and a grey — not that colour makes any matter to a 

 judge like you ; there's no sounder sayin' than that a good oss is 

 not never of a bad colour ; only to a young gemman, you know, 

 it's well to have 'em smart, and the ticket, in short ; howsomever, 

 I must do the best I can for you, and if there's nothin' in that 

 tickles your fancy, why, you must give me a few days to see if 

 I can arrange an exchange with some other gent ; but the present 

 is like to be a werry haggiwatin' season ; had more happlicatious 

 for osscs nor ever I remembers, and I've been a dealer now, man 

 and boy, turned of eight-and-thirty years ; but young gents is 

 whimsical, and it was a young'un wot got these, and there's no 

 sayin' but he mayn't like them — indeed, one's rayther difficult 

 to ride, — that's to say, the grey, the neatest of the two, and he 

 may come back, and if so, you shall have him ; and a safer, 

 sweeter oss was never seen, or one more like to do credit to a 

 gent : but you knows what an oss is, Mr. Sponge, and can do 

 justice to me, and I should like to put summut good into your 

 hands — that I should." 



With conversation, or rather with balderdash, such as this, Mr. 

 Buckram beguiled the few minutes necessary for removing the 

 bandages, hiding the bottles, and stirring up the cripples about 

 to be examined, and the heavy flap of the coach-house door 

 announcing that all was ready, he forthwith led the way through 

 a door in a brick wall into a little three-sides of a square yard, 

 ibrmed of stables and loose boxes, with a dilapidated dove-cote 

 above a pump in the centre ; Mr. Buckram, not growing corn, 

 could afford to keep pigeons. 



