432 MR. SPONGE'S SPOETING TOUR. 



victuallers, was more given to games of skill — billiards, shuttlecock, 

 skittles, dominoes, and so on — than to the rude out-of-door 

 chances of flood and field, and at first he doubted his ability to 

 grapple with the details ; but on Mr. Watchorn's assurance that 

 lie would keep him straight, he gave Mrs. Yiney a key, desiring 

 her to go into the inner cellar, and bring out a bottle of the green 

 seal. This was ninety-shilling sherry — very good stuff to take ; 

 and, by the time they got into the second bottle, they had got 

 into the middle of the scheme too. Viney was cautious and 

 thoughtful. He had a high opinion of Watchorn's sagacity, and 

 so long as Watchorn confined himself to weights, and stakes, and 

 forfeits, and so on, he was content to leave himself in the hands 

 of the huntsman ; but when Watchorn came to talk of "stewards," 

 putting this person and that together, Viney's experience came in 

 aid. Viney knew a good deal. He had not stood twisting a 

 napkin negligently before a plate-loaded sideboard without picking 

 up a good many waifs and strays in the shape of those ins and 

 outs, those likings and dislikings, those hatreds and jealousies, that 

 foolish people let fall so freely before servants, as if for all the 

 world the servants were sideboards themselves ; and he had kept 

 up his stock of service-gained knowledge by a liberal, though not 

 a dignity-compromising intercourse — for there is no greater 

 aristocrat than your out-of-livcry servant — among the upper 

 servants of all the families in the neighbourhood, so that he knew 

 to a nicety who would pull together and who wouldn't, whose 

 name it would not do to mention to this person, and who it would 

 not do to apply to before that. 



Neither Watchorn nor Viney being sportsmen, they thought they 

 had nothing to do but apply to two friends who were ; and after 

 thinking over who hunted in couples, they were unfortunate 

 enough "to select our Flat Hat friends, Fyle and Fossick. Fyle was 

 indignant beyond measure at being asked to be steward to a 

 steeple-chase, and thrust the application into the fire ; while 

 Fossick just wrote below, " I'll see you hanged first," and sent it 

 back without putting even a fresh head on the envelope. Nothing 

 daunted, however, they returned to the charge, anci without 

 troubling the reader with unnecessary detail, we think it will be 

 generally admitted that they at length made an excellent selection 

 in Mr. Puffingcon, Guano, and Tom Washball. 



Fortune favoured them also in getting a locality to run in, for 

 Timothy Scourgefield, of Broom Hill, whose farm commanded a 

 good circular three miles of country, with every variety of obstacle, 

 having thrown up his lease for a thirty-per-cent. reduction — a giving 

 up that had been most unhandsomely accepted by his landlord — 

 Timothy was most anxious to pay him off by doing every 

 conceivable injury to the farm, than which nothing can be more 



