MR. SPONGE'S SPORTING TOUR. 143 



possession. All three rooms were furnished in the roughest, 

 coarsest, homeliest way — his lordship wishing to keep all the good 

 furniture against he got married. The sitting-room, or parlour as 

 his lordship called it, had an old grey drugget for a carpet, an old 

 round black mahogany table on castors, that the last steward had 

 ejected as too bad for him, four semicircular wooden-bottomed 

 walnut smoking-chairs ; an old spindle-shanked sideboard, with 

 very little middle, over which swung a few book-shelves, with the 

 termination of their green strings surmounted by a couple of 

 foxes' brushes. Small as the shelves were, they were larger than 

 his lordship wanted — two books, one for Jack and one for himself, 

 being all they contained ; while the other shelves were filled with 

 hunting-horns, odd spurs, knots of whipcord, piles of halfpence, 

 lucifer match-boxes, gun-charges, and such like miscellaneous 

 articles. 



His lordship's fare was as rough as his furniture. He was a 

 great admirer of tripe, cow-heel, and delicacies of that kind ; he 

 had tripe twice a-week — boiled one day, fried another. He was 

 also a great patron of beefsteaks, which he ate half raw, with 

 slices of cold onion served in a saucer with water. 



It was a beefsteak-and-batter-pudding day on which the fore- 

 going run took place ; and his lordship and Jack having satisfied 

 nature off their respective dishes — for they only had vegetables in 

 common — and having finished off with some very strong Cheshire 

 cheese, wheeled their chairs to the fire, while Bags the butler 

 cleared the table and placed it between them. They were dressed 

 in full suits of flaming large-checked red-and-yellow tartans, the 

 tartan of that noble clan the " Stunners," with black-and-white 

 Shetland hose and red slippers. His lordship and Jack had 

 related their mutual adventures by cross visits to each other's 

 bedrooms while dressing ; and, dinner being announced by the 

 time they were ready, they had fallen to, and applied themselves 

 diligently to the victuals, and now very considerately unbuttoned 

 their many-pocketed waistcoats and stuck out their legs, to give it 

 a fair chance of digesting. They seldom spoke much until his 

 lordship had had his nap, which he generally took immediately 

 after dinner ; but on this particular night he sat bending forward 

 in his chair, picking his teeth and looking at his toes, evidently 

 ill at ease in his mind. Jack guessed the cause, but didn't say 

 anything. Sponge, he thought, had beat him. 



At length his lordship threw himself back in his chair, and 

 stretching his little queer legs out before him, began to breathe 

 thicker and thicker, till at last he got the melody up to a grunt. 

 It was not the fine generous snore of a sleep that he usually 

 enjoyed, but, short, fitful, broken naps, that generally terminated 

 in spasmodic jerks of the arms or legs. These grew worse, till at 



