MR. SPONGE'S SPORTING TOUR. 261 



about the country, showing it to everybody, and wondering who 

 wrote it." 



" And what shall we send it to ? — the Sporting Magazine, or 

 what ? " asked Sponge. 



"Sporting Magazine! — no," replied Jack; "wouldn't be out 

 till next year — quick's the word in these railway times. Send it 

 to a newspaper — Bell's Life, or one of the Swillingford papers. 

 Either of them would be glad to put it in." 



" I hope they'll be able to read it," observed Sponge, looking at 

 the blotched and scrawled manuscript. 



" Trust them for that," replied Jack ; adding " If there's any 

 word that bothers them, they've nothin' to do but look in the 

 dictionary — these folks all have dictionaries, wonderful fellows for 

 epellin'." 



Just then a little buttony page, in green and gold, came in to 

 ask if there were any letters for the post ; and our friends hastily 

 made up their packet, directing it to the editor of the Swilling- 

 ford "Guide to Glory and Freeman's Friend ;" words that 

 in the hurried style of Mr. Sponge's penmanship looked very like 

 "Guide to Grog, and Freeman's Friend." 



CHAPTER XXXVIII. 



A LITERARY BLOOMER. 



Time was when the independent borough of Swillingford 

 supported two newspapers, or rather two editors, the editor of the 

 Swillingford Patriot, and the editor of the Swillingford Guide to 

 Glorg ; but those were stirring days, when politics ran high 

 and votes and corn commanded good prices. The papers were 

 never very prosperous concerns, as may be supposed when we 

 say that the circulation of the former at its best time was barely 

 seven hundred, while that of the latter never exceeded a 

 thousand. 



They were both started at the reform times, when the reduc- 

 tion of the stamp-duty brought so many aspiring candidates for 

 literary fame into the field, and for a time they were conducted 

 with all the bitter hostility that a contracted neighbourhood, and 

 a constant crossing by the editors of each other's path, could 

 engender. The competition, too, for advertisements, was keen, and 

 the editors were continually taunting each other with taking them 

 for the duty alone. iEneas M'Quirter was the editor of the 

 Patriot, and Felix Grimes that of the Guide to Glory. 



