50 MR. sponge's sporting tour. 



CHAPTER IX. 



THE MEET THE FIND, AND THE FINISH. 



Early to bed and early to rise being among Mr. Sponge's maxims, 

 he was enjoying the view of the pantiles at the back of his hotel 

 shortly after daylight the next morning, a time about as difficult to 

 fix in a November day as the age of a lady of a " certain age." It 

 takes even an expeditious dresser ten minutes or a quarter of an 

 hour extra the first time he has to deal with boots and breeches ; and 

 Mr. Sponge being quite a pattern card in his peculiar line, of course 

 took a good deal more to get himself " up." 



An accustomed eye could see a more than ordinary stir in the 

 streets that morning. Riding-masters and their assistants might be 

 seen going along with strings of saddled and side-saddled screws ; 

 flys began to roll at an earlier hour, and natty tigers to kick about 

 in buckskins prior to departing with hunters, good, bad, and indif- 

 ferent. 



Each man had told his partner at Miss Jumpheavy's ball of the 

 capital trick they were going to play the stranger ; and a desire to 

 see the stranger, far more than a desire to see the trick, caused many 

 fair ones to forsake their downy couches who had much better have 

 kept them. 



The world is generally very complaisant with regard to strangers, 

 so long as they are strangers, generally making them out to be a 

 good deal better than they really are, and Mr. Sponge came in for 

 his full share of stranger credit. They not only brought all the 

 twenty horses Leather said he had scattered about to Laverick Wells, 

 but made him out to have a house in Eaton-square, a yacht at Cowes, 

 and a first-rate moor in Scotland, and some said a peerage in expec- 

 tancy. No wonder that he " drew," as theatrical people say. 

 Let us now suppose him breakfasted, and ready for a start. 

 He was " got up " with uncommon care in the most complete 

 style of the severe order of sporting costume. It being now the 

 commencement of the legitimate hunting-season — the first week in 

 November — he availed himself of the privileged period for turning 

 out in everything new. Rejecting the now generally worn cap, he 

 adhered to the heavy, close-napped hat, described in our opening 

 chapter, whose connexion with his head, or back, if it came off, was 

 secured by a small black silk cord, hooked through the band by a 

 fox's tooth, and anchored to a button inside the haven of his low 

 coat-collar. His neck was enveloped in the ample folds of a large 

 white silk cravat, tied in a pointing diamond tie, and secured with a 



