34 mr. sponge's sporting tour. 



out of Chancery, he disdained to talk about a subscription, and boldly 

 took the hounds as his own. He then became a very important per- 

 sonage at Laverick Wells. 



He had always been a most important personage among the ladies, 

 but as the men couldn't marry him, those who didn't want to borrow 

 money of him, of course, ran him down. It used to be, " Look at 

 that dandified ass, Watties, I declare the sight of him makes me sick ; " 

 or, l ' What a barber's apprentice that fellow is, with his ringlets all 

 smeared with Macassar." 



Now it was Waffles this, and Waffles that, " Who dines with 

 Waffles ? " " Waffles is the best fellow under the sun ! By Jingo, I 

 know no such man as Waffles ! " " Most deserving young man ! " 



In arriving at this conclusion, their judgment was greatly assisted 

 by the magnificent way he went to work. Old Tom Towler, the 

 whip, who had toiled at his calling for twenty long years on fifty 

 pounds and what he could " pick up," was advanced to a hundred and 

 fifty, with a couple of men under him. Instead of riding worn-out, 

 tumble-down, twenty-pound screws, he was mounted on hundred- 

 guinea horses, for which the dealers were to have a couple of hun- 

 dred, when they were paid. Every thing was in the same propor- 

 tion. 



Mr. Waffles' succession to the hunt made a great commotion 

 among the fair — many elegant and interesting young ladies, who had 

 been going on the pious tack against the Reverend Solomon Wink- 

 eyes, the popular bachelor-preacher of St. Margaret's, teaching in his 

 schools, distributing his tracts, and collecting the penny subscriptions 

 for his clothing club, now took to riding in fan-tailed habits and 

 feathered hats, and talking about leaping and hunting, and riding over 

 rails. Mr. Waffles had a pound of hat-strings sent him in a week, 

 and muffatees innumerable. Some, we are sorry to say, worked him 

 cigar-cases. He, in return, having expended a vast of toil and inge- 

 nuity in inventing a " button;" now had several dozen of them worked 

 up into brooches, which he scattered about with a liberal hand. It 

 was not one of your matter-of-fact story-telling buttons — a fox with 

 " Tally-ho," or a fox's head grinning in grim death — making a red 

 coat look like a miniature butcher's shamble, but it was one of your 

 queer twisting lettered concerns, that may pass either for a military 

 button, or a naval button, or a club button, or even for a livery but- 

 ton. The letters, two W's, were so skilfully entwined, that even a com- 

 positor — and compositors arc people who can read almost anything — 

 would have been puzled to dccypher it. The letters were gilt, riveted 

 on steel, and the wearers of the button-brooches were very soon dub- 

 bed by the non recipients, " Mr. Waffles' sheep." 



A fine button naturally requires a fine coat to put it on, and 

 many were the consultations and propositions as to what it should be. 

 Mr. Slocdolager had done nothing in the decorative department, and 



