304 MR. SPONGE'S SPORTING TOUR. 



though she couldn't help thinking what a noodle Jog was to bring 

 a stranger on a washing-day. That, however, was a point she 

 would reserve for Jog. 



Just then a loud outburst from the children announced the 

 approach of the eighth wonder of the world, in the person of 

 Gustavus James in the nurse's arms, with a curly blue feather 

 nodding over his nose. Mrs. Jogglebury's black eyes brightened 

 with delight as she ran forward to meet him ; and in her mind's 

 eye she saw him inheriting a splendid mansion, with a retinue of 

 powdered footmen in pea-green liveries and broad gold-laced hats. 

 Great — prospectively great, at least — as had been her successes in 

 the sponsor line with her other children, she really thought, getting 

 Mr. Sponge for a god-papa for Gustavus James eclipsed all her 

 other doings. 



Mr. Sponge, having been liberal in his admiration of the other 

 children, of course could not refuse unbounded applause to the 

 evident object of a mother's regards ; and, chucking the young 

 gentleman under his double chin, asked him how he was, and said 

 something about something he had in his " box," alluding to a 

 paper of cheap comfits he had bought at Sugarchalk's, the confec- 

 tioner's sale in Oxford-street, and which he carried about for 

 contingencies like the present. This pleased Mrs. Crowdey — 

 looking, as she thought, as if he had come predetermined to do 

 what she wanted. Amidst praises and stories of the prodigy, they 

 reached the house. 



If a " hall " means a house with an entrance-" hall," Pudding- 

 pote Bower did not aspire to be one. A visitor dived, in medias res, 

 into the passage at once. In it stood an oak-cased family clock, and 

 a large glass-case, with an alarming-looking, stuffed tiger-like cat, 

 on an imitation marble slab. Underneath the slab, indeed all 

 about the passage, were scattered children's hats and caps, hoops, 

 tops, spades, and mutilated toys, — spotted horses without heads, 

 soldiers without arms, windmills without sails, and wheelbarrows 

 without wheels. In a corner were a bunch of " gibbies " in the 

 rough, and alongside the weather-glass hung Jog's formidable flail 

 of a hunting-whip. 



Mr. Sponge found his portmanteau standing bolt upright in the 

 passage, with the bag alongside of it, just as they had been chucked 

 out of the phaeton by Bartholomew Badger, who having got orders 

 to put the horse right, and then to put himself right to wait at 

 dinner, Mr. Jogglebury proceeded to vociferate, — 



" Murry Ann ! — Murry Ann ! " in such a way that Mary Ann 

 thought either that the cat had got young Crowdey, or the house 

 was on fire. " Oh ! Murry Ann ! " exclaimed Mr. Jogglebury, as 

 she came darting into the passage from the back settlements, up 

 to the elbows in soap-suds ; " I want you to (puff) up-stairs with 



