mr. sponge's sporting tour. 39 



Stables," in Pegasus Street, or Peg Street, as it is generally called, 

 where he enacted the character of stud-groom to perfection, doing 

 nothing himself; but seeing that others did his work, and strutting 

 consequentially with the corn-sieves at feeding time. 



After Leather's long London experience, it is natural to suppose 

 that he would not be long in falling in with some old acquaintance 

 at a place like the " Wells," and the first night fortunately brought 

 him in contact with a couple of grooms who had had the honour of 

 his acquaintance when in all the radiance of his glass-blown wigged 

 prosperity as body-coachman to the Duke of Dazzleton, and who 

 knew nothing of the treadmill, or his subsequent career. This in- 

 troduction served with his own easy assurance, and the deference 

 country servants always pay to London ones, at once to give him 

 standing, and it is creditable to the etiquette of servitude to say, 

 that on joining the " Mutton-chop and Mealy-potato Club," at the 

 Cat and Bagpipes, on the second night after his arrival, the whole 

 club rose to receive him on entering, and placed him in the post of 

 honour, on the right of the president. 



He was very soon quite at home with the whole of them, and 

 ready to tell any thing he knew of the great families in which he had 

 lived. Of course, he abused the Duke's place, and said he had 

 been obliged to give him " hup " at last, " bein' quite an unpossible 

 man to live with ; indeed, his only wonder was, that he had been 

 able to put hup with him so long." The duchess was a "good 

 cretur," he said, and, indeed, it was mainly on her account that he 

 stayed, but as to the duke, he was — every thing that was bad, in 

 short. . 



Mr. Sponge, on the other hand, had no reason to complain of the 

 colours in which his stucl-groom painted him. Instead of being the 

 shirtless strapper of a couple of vicious hack hunters, Leather made 

 himself out to be the general superintendent of the opulent owner 

 of a large stud. The exact number varied with the number of 

 glasses of grog Leather had taken, but he never had less than a 

 dozen, and sometimes as many as twenty hunters under his care. 

 These, he said, were planted all over the kingdom ; some at Melton, 

 to " 'unt with the Quorn ; " some at Northampton, to " 'unt with 

 the Pytchley; " some at Lincoln, to " 'unt with Lord 'Enry; " 

 and some at Louth, to " 'unt with " — he didn't know who. What a 

 fine flattering, well-spoken world this is, when the speaker can raise 

 his own consequence by our elevation ! One would think that " envy, 

 hatred, malice, and all uncharitableness," had gone to California. A 

 weak-minded man might have his head turned by hearing the .de- 

 scription given of him by his friends. But hear the same party on 

 the running-down tack ! — when either his own importance is not in- 

 volved, or dire offence makes it worth his while " to cut off his nose 

 to spite his face." No one would recognise the portrait then drawn 

 as one of the same individual. 



