24 MR. SPONGE'S SPORTING TOUR. 



unmoncy-making offices, — being tilings that most men are anxious 

 to foist upon their friends, Mr. Waffles' big talk and interference 

 in the field procured him the honour of the first refusal. Not that 

 he was the man to refuse, for he jumped at the offer, and, as he 

 would be of age before the season came round, and would have 

 got all his money out of Chancery, he disdained to talk about a 

 subscription, and boldly took the hounds as his own. He then 

 became a very important personage at Laverick Wells. 



He had always been a most important personage among the 

 ladies, but as the men couldn't marry him, those who didn't 

 want to borrow money of him, of course, ran him down. It used 

 to be, " Look at that dandified ass, Waffles, I declare the sight of 

 him makes me sick ; " or, " What a barber's apprentice that fellow 

 is, with his ringlets all smeared with Macassar." 



Now it was Waffles this, Waffles that, "Who dines with 

 Waffles ? " " Waffles is the best fellow under the sun ! By Jingo, 

 I know no such man. as Waffles ! " " Most deserving young 

 man ! " 



In arriving at this conclusion, their judgment was greatly 

 assisted by the magnificent way he went to work. Old Tom 

 Towler, the whip, who had toiled at his calling for twenty long 

 years on fifty pounds and what he could " pick up," was advanced 

 to a hundred and fifty, with a couple of men under him. Instead 

 •of riding worn-out, tumble-down, twenty-pound screws, he was 

 mounted on hundred-guinea horses, for which the dealers were to 

 have a couple of hundred, when they were paid. Every thing was 

 in the same proportion. 



. Mr. AVaffles' succession to the hunt made a great commotion 

 among the fair — many elegant and interesting young ladies, who 

 had been going on the pious tack against the Reverend Solomon 

 Winkcycs, the popular bachelor-preacher of St. Margaret's, teach- 

 ing in his schools, distributing his tracts, and collecting the penny 

 subscriptions for his clothing club, now took to riding in fan-tailed 

 habits and feathered hats, and talking about leaping and hunting, 

 and riding over rails. Mr. Waffles had a pound of hat-strings 

 sent him in a week, and muffatecs innumerable. Some, w^e are 

 sorry to say, worked him cigar-cases. He, in return, having 

 expended a vast of toil and ingenuity in inventing a " button," 

 now had several dozen of them worked up into brooches, which he 

 scattered about with a liberal hand. It was not one of your 

 matter-of-fact story-telling buttons — a fox with " Tally-ho," or a 

 fox's head grinning in grim death — making a red coat look like a 

 miniature butcher's shamble, but it was one of your queer twisting 

 lettered concerns, that may pass cither for a military button, or a 

 naval button, or a club button, or even for a livery button. The 

 'otters, two W's, were so skilfully entwined, that even a composi- 



