362 ME. SPONGE'S SPORTING TOUR. 



she was quite sure Mr. Sponge was much struck, and to whom, 

 she made no doubt, he would leave his ample fortune. Jog, on 

 the other hand, wheezed and puffed into his frill, and reasserted 

 that Mr. Sponge was as likely to live as Gustavus James, and to 

 marry and to have a bushel of children of his own ; while Mrs. 

 Jog rejoined that he was "sure to break his neck" — breaking 

 their necks being, as she conceived, the inevitable end of fox- 

 hunters. Jog, who had not prosecuted the sport of hunting long 

 enough to be able to gainsay her assertion, though he took especial 

 care to defer the operation of breaking his own neck as long as he 

 could, fell back upon the expense and inconvenience of keeping 

 Mr. Sponge and his three horses, and his saucy servant, who had 

 taught their domestics to turn up their noses at his diet table ; 

 above all, at his stick-jaw and undeniable small-beer. So they 

 went fighting and squabbling on, till at last the scene ended as 

 usual, by Mrs. Jogglebury bursting into tears, and declaring that 

 Jog didn't care a farthing either for her or her children. Jog 

 then bundled off, to try and fashion a most incorrigible-looking, 

 knotty blackthorn into a head of Lord Chancellor Lyndhurst. 

 He afterwards took a turn at a hazel that he thought would make 

 a Joe Hume. Having occupied himself with tbese till the 

 children's dinner-hour, he took a wandering, snatching sort of 

 meal, and then put on his paletot, with a little hatchet in the 

 pocket, and went off in search of the raw material in his own and 

 ■the neighbouring hedges. 



Evening came, and with it came Jog, laden, as usual, with an 

 armful of gibbies, but the shades of night followed evening erj 

 there was any tidings of the sporting inmates of his house. At 

 length just as Jog was taking his last stroll prior to going in for 

 good, he espied a pair of vacillating white breeches coming up the 

 avenue with a clearly drunken man inside them. Jog stood 

 ■straining his eyes watching their movements, wondering whether 

 they would keep the saddle or come off — whenever the breeches 

 seemed irrevocably gone, they invariably recovered themselves 

 with a jerk or a lurch — Jog now saw it was Leather on the pie- 

 bald, and though he had no fancy for the man, he stood to let 

 him come up, thinking to hear something of Sponge. Leather in 

 due time saw the great looming outline of our friend and came 

 -staring and shaking his head endeavouring to identify it. He 

 thought at first it was the Squire — next he thought it wasn't — then 

 he was sure it wasn't. 



" Oh ! it's you, old boy, is it ? " at last exclaimed he, pulling 

 up beside the large holly against which our friend had placed 

 himself, " It's you, old boy, is it ? " repeated he, extending his 

 right hand and nearly overbalancing himself, adding as he recovered 

 his equilibrium, " I thought it was the old Woolpack at first," 



