200 MR. SPONGE'S SPORTING TOUR. 



Having broken faith with him, he considered it his duty to he 

 " upsides " with him, and tell the servants all he knew about him. 

 Accordingly he let out, in strict confidence of course, to Spigot, 

 that so far from Mr. Sponge being a gentleman of " fortin," as he 

 called it, with a dozen or two hunters planted here and there, he 

 was nothing but the hirer of a couple of hacks, with himself as a 

 job-groom, by the week. Spigot, who was on the best of terms with 

 the " cook-housekeeper," and had his clothes washed on the sly in 

 the laundry, could not do less than communicate the intelligence 

 to her, from whom it went to the lady's-maid, and thence circu- 

 lated in the upper regions. 



Juliana, the maid, finding Miss Amelia less indisposed to hear 

 Mr. Sponge run down than she expected, proceeded to add her 

 own observations to the information derived from Leather, the 

 groom. " Indeed, she couldn't say that she thought much of Mr. 

 Sponge herself ; his shirts were coarse, so were his pocket-hand- 

 kerchiefs ; and she never yet saw a real gent without a valet." 



Amelia, without any positive intention of giving up Mr. Sponge, 

 at least not until she saw further, had nevertheless got an idea 

 that she was destined for a much higher sphere. Having duly 

 considered all the circumstances of Mr. Spraggon's visit to 

 Jawleyford Court, conned over several mysterious coughs and 

 half -finished sentences he had indulged in, she had about come to 

 the conclusion that the real object of his mission was to negotiate 

 a matrimonial alliance on behalf of Lord Scamperdale. His lord- 

 ship's constantly expressed intention of getting married was well 

 calculated to mislead one whose experience of the world was not 

 sufficiently great to know that those men who are always talking 

 about it are the least likely to get married, just as men who are 

 always talking about buying horses are the men who never do buy 

 them. Be that, however, as it may, Amelia was tolerably easy 

 about Mr. Sponge. If he had money she could take him, if he 

 hadn't she could let him alone. 



Jawleyford, too, who was more hospitable at a distance, and in 

 imagination than in reality, had had about enough of our friend. 

 Indeed, a man whose talk was of hunting, and his reading "Mogg," 

 was not likely to have much in common with a gentleman of taste 

 and elegance, as our friend set up to be. The delicate inquiry 

 that Mrs. Jawleyford now made, as to "whether he knew Mr. 

 Sponge to be a man of fortune," set him off at a tangent. 



" Me know he's a man of fortune ! / know nothing of his for- 

 tune. You asked him here, not me," exclaimed Jawleyford, stamp- 

 ing furiously. 



" No, my dear," replied Mrs. Jawleyford, mildly ; " he asked 

 himself, you know ; but I thought, perhaps, you might have said 

 something that " 



