MR. SPONGE'S SPORTING TOUR. 75 



" Have If " ejaculated Jawleyford. " Do you suppose, if I had, 

 I'd have left Laverick Wells without paying Miss Bustlebey, or 

 given a bill at three months for the house-rent ? " 



"Well, but my dear, you've nothing to do but tell Mr. Screwem- 

 tight to get you some money from the tenants." 



" Money from the tenants ! " replied Mr. Jawleyford. " Screwem- 

 tight tells me he can't get another farthing from any man on the 

 estate." 



" Oh, pooh ! " said Mrs. Jawleyford ; " you're far too good to 

 them. I always say Screwemtight looks far more to their interest 

 than he does to yours." 



Jawleyford, we may observe, was one of the rather numerous 

 race of paper-booted, pen-and-ink landowners. He always dressed 

 in the country as he would in St. James's-street, and his communi- 

 cations with his tenantry w^ere chiefly confined to dining with them 

 twice a year in the great entrance-hall, after Mr. Screwemtight 

 had eased them of their cash in the steward's-room. Then Mr. 

 Jawleyford would shine forth the very impersonification of what 

 a landlord ought to be. Dressed in the height of the fashion, as if by 

 his clothes to give the lie to his words, he would expatiate on the 

 delights of such meetings of equality ; declare that, next to those 

 spent with his family, the only really happy moments of his life 

 were those when he w r as surrounded by his tenantry ; he doated on 

 the manly character of the English farmer. Then he would advert 

 to the great antiquity of the Jawleyford family, many generations 

 of whom looked down upon them from the walls of the old hall ; 

 some on their war-steeds, some armed cap-a-pie, some in court- 

 dresses, some in Spanish ones, one in a w T hite dress with gold brocade 

 breeches and a hat with an enormous plume, old Jawleyford (father 

 of the present one) in the Windsor uniform, and our friend him- 

 self, the very prototype of what then stood before them. Indeed, 

 he had been painted in the act of addressing his hereditary chaw- 

 bacons in the hall in which the picture was suspended. There he 

 stood, with his bright auburn hair (now rather badger-pied, perhaps, 

 but still very passable by candle-light) — his bright auburn hair, we 

 say, swept boldly off his lofty forehead, his hazy grey eyes flashing 

 with the excitement of drink and animation, his left hand reposing 

 on the hip of his well-fitting black pantaloons, while the right 

 one, radiant with rings, and trimmed with upturned wristband, 

 sawed the air, as he rounded off the periods of the well- 

 accustomed saws. 



Jawleyford, like a good many people, was very hospitable when 

 in full fig — two soups, two fishes, and the necessary concomitants ; 

 but he would see any one far enough before he would give him a 

 dinner merely because he wanted one. That sort of ostentatious 

 banqueting has about brought country society in general to a 



