MB. SPONGE'S SPORTING TOUR. 31 



" Hang your play ! " replied Spareneck ; " you're i 

 thinking of play — it's hunting I'm talking of," bringing his 

 silver-mounted jockey-whip a crack down his leg. 



" You don't say so ! " exclaimed Sam Shortcut, who had been 

 flattered into riding rather harder than he liked, and feared his 

 pluck might be put to the test. 



" What a ruffian ! " — (puff )— observed Mr. Waffles, taking his 

 cigar from his mouth as he sat on the bench, dressed as a racket- 

 player, looking on at the game, " he shalln't ride roughshod over 

 us." 



" That he shalln't!" exclaimed Caingey Thornton, Mr. Waffles' s 

 premier toady, and constant trencher-man. 



" I'll ride him ! " rejoined Mr. Spareneck, jockeying his arms, 

 and flourishing his whip as if he was at work, adding : " his old 

 brandy-nosed, frosty-whiskered trumpeter of a groom says he's 

 coming down by the five o'clock train. I vote we go and meet 

 him — invite him to a steeple-chase by moonlight." 



" I vote we go and see him, at all events," observed Frank 

 Hoppey, laying down his cue and putting on his coat, adding, " I 

 should like to see a man bold enough to beard a whole hunt — 

 especially such a hunt as ours." 



" Finish the game first," observed Captain Macer, who had 

 rather the best of it. 



" No, leave the balls as they are till we conifi back," rejoined 

 Ned Stringer ; " we shall be late. See, it's only ten to, now," 

 continued he, pointing to the timepiece above the fire ; whereupon 

 there was a putting away of cues, hurrying on of coats, seeking of 

 hats, sorting of sticks, and a general desertion of the room for the 

 railway station. 



CHAPTER VII. 



OUR HERO ARRIVES AT LAVE RICK WELLS. 



Punctual to the moment, the railway train, conveying the 

 redoubtable genius, glid into the well-lighted, elegant little station 

 of Laverick Wells, and out of a first-class carriage emerged Mr. 

 Sponge, in a "down the road" coat, carrying a horse-sheet 

 wrapper in his hand. So small and insignificant did the station 

 seem after the gigantic ones of London, that Mr. Sponge thought 

 he had wasted his money in taking a first-class ticket, seeing there 

 was no one to know. Mr. Leather, who was in attendance, having 

 received him hat in hand, with all the deference due to the master 

 of twenty hunters, soon undeceived him on that point. Having 



D 



