MR. SPONGE'S SPORTING TOUR. 155 



oak press in the still-room, and the key of the still-room is locked 

 away in the linen-press in the green lumber-room at the top of 

 the house, and the key of the green lumber-room is in a drawer at 

 the bottom of the wardrobe in the Star-Chamber, and the — " 



"Ah, well ; never mind," grunted Jack, interrupting the laby- 

 rinth of lies. " I dare say these will do, — I dare say these will 

 do," putting them on ; adding, " Now, if you'll lend me a shawl 

 for my neck, and a Macintosh, my name shall be Walker." 



" Better make it Trotter," replied his lordship, " considering the 

 distance you have to go." 



" Good," said Jack, mounting and driving away. 



" It will be a blessing if we get there," observed Jack to the 

 liveried stable-lad, as the old bag of bones of a mare went hitching 

 and limping away. 



" Oh, she can go when she's warm," replied the lad, taking her 

 across the ears with the point of the whip. The wheels followed 

 merrily over the sound, hard road through the park, and the gentle 

 though almost imperceptible fall of the ground giving an impetus to 

 the vehicle, they bowled away as if they had four of the soundest, 

 freshest legs in the world before them, instead of nothing but a 

 belly-band between them and eternity. 



When, however, they cleared the noble lodge and got upon the 

 unscraped mud of the Deepdebt turnpike, the pace soon slackened, 

 and, instead of the gig running away with the old mare, she was 

 fairly brought to her collar. Being a game one, however, she 

 struggled on with a trot, till at length, turning up the deeply- 

 spurlinged clayey-bottomed cross-road between Rookgate and 

 Clamley, it was all she could do to drag the gig through the 

 holding mire. Bump, bump, jolt, jolt, creak, creak, went the 

 vehicle, Jack now diving his elbow into the lad's ribs, the lad now 

 diving his into Jack's ; both now threatening to go over on the 

 same side, and again both nearly chucked on to the old mare's 

 quarters. A sharp, cutting sleet, driving pins and needles directly 

 in their faces, further disconcerted our travellers. Jack felt 

 acutely for his new eight-and-sixpenny hat, it being the only 

 article of dress he had on of his own. 



Long and tedious as was the road, weak and jaded as was the 

 mare, and long as Jack stopped at Starfield, he yet reached Jaw- 

 leyford Court before the messenger Harry. 



As our friend Jawleyford was stamping about his study 

 anathematising a letter he had received from the solicitor to the 

 directors of the Doembrown and Sinkall Railway, informing him 

 that they were going to indulge in the winding-up act, he chanced 

 to look out of his window just as the contracted limits of a 

 winter's day were drawing the first folds of night's muslin curtain 

 over the landscape, when he espied a gig drawn by a white horse, 



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