MB. SPONGE'S SPOUTING- TOUR. 



41 



CHAPTEE IX. 



THE MEET. 



ARLY 



ENJOYING THE VIEW. 



to bed and early to rise 

 being among Mr. Sponge's 

 maxims, he was enjoying the 

 view of the pantiles at the 

 back of his hotel shortly after 

 daylight the next morning, a 

 time about as difficult to fix 

 in a November day as the age 

 of a lady of a " certain age." 

 It takes even an expeditious 

 dresser ten minutes or a 

 quarter of an hour extra the 

 first time he has to deal with 

 boots and breeches ; and Mr. 

 Sponge being quite a pattern 

 card in his peculiar line, of 

 course took a good deal more 

 to get himself " up." 



An accustomed eye could 

 see a more than ordinary stir in the streets that morning. 

 Eiding-masters and their assistants might be seen going along 

 with strings of saddled and side-saddled screws ; flys began to roll 

 at an earlier hour, and natty tigers to kick about in buckskins 

 prior to departing with hunters, good, bad, and indifferent. 



Each man had told his partner at Miss Jumpheavy's ball of the 

 capital trick they were going to play the stranger ; and a desire 

 to see the stranger, far more than a desire to see the trick, caused 

 many fair ones to forsake their downy couches who had much 

 better have kept them. 



The world is generally very complacent with regard to strangers, 

 so long as they are strangers, generally making them out to be a 

 good deal better than they really are, and Mr. Sponge came in for 

 his full share of stranger credit. They not only brought all the 

 twenty horses Leather said he had scattered about to Laverick Wells, 

 but made him out to have a house in Eaton-square, a yacht at 

 Cowes, and a first-rate moor in Scotland, and some said a peerage in 

 expectancy. No wonder that he "drew," as theatrical people say. 

 Let us now suppose him breakfasted, and ready for a start. 

 He was " got up " with uncommon care in the most complete 

 style of the severe order of sporting costume. It being now the 



