MR. sponge's sporting tour. 69 



our friends smoked their cigars, reviewed the cavalry, and criticised 

 the ladies who passed below in the flys on their way to the meet. 



" Come, old Bolter ! " exclaimed one, " here's Miss Bussington 

 coming to look after you — got her mamma with her, too — so you may 

 as well knock under at once, for she's determined to have you." 



" A devil of a woman the old un is, too," observed Ensign Down- 

 ley ; " she nearly frightened Jack Simpers of ours into fits, by asking 

 what he meant after dancing three dances with her daughter one 

 night." 



" My word, but Miss Jumpheavy must expect to do some execu- 

 tion to-day with that fine floating feather and her crimson satin dress 

 and ermine," observed Mr. Waffles, as that estimable lady drove past 

 in her Victoria phaeton. " She looks like the Queen of Sheba her- 

 self. But come, I suppose," he added, taking a most diminutive 

 Geneva watch out of his waistcoat-pocket, "we should be going. See! 

 there's your nag kicking up a shindy," he said to Caingey Thornton, 

 as the redoubtable brown was led down the street by a jean-jacketed 

 groom, kicking and lashing out at everything he came near. 



" I'll kick him," observed Thornton, retiring from the balcony to 

 the brandy-bottle, and helping himself to a pretty good-sized glass. 

 He then extricated his large cutting whip from the confusion of whips 

 with which it was mixed, and clonk, clonk, clonked down stairs to 

 the door. 



" Multum in Parvo " stopped the doorway, across whose shoulder 

 Leather passed the following hints, in a low tone of voice, to Mr. 

 Sponge, as the latter stood drawing on his dog-skin gloves, the ob- 

 served, as he flattered himself, of all observers. 



" Mind, now," said Leather, " this oss as a will of his own ; though 

 he seems so quiet like, he's not always to be depended on ; so be on 

 the look out for squalls." 



Sponge, having had a glass of brandy, just mounted with the air 

 of a man thoroughly at home with his horse, and drawing the rein 

 with a slight feel of the spur, passed on from the door to make way 

 for the redoubtable Hercules. Hercules was evidently not in a good 

 humor. His ears were laid back, and the rolling white eye showed 

 mischief. Sponge saw all this, and turned to see whether Thornton's 

 clumsy, wash-ball seat, would be able to control the fractious spirit 

 of the horse. 



" Whoay ! " roared Thornton, as his first dive at the stirrup 

 missed, and was answered by a hearty kick out from the horse, the 

 " whoay " being given in a very different tone to the gentle, coaxing 

 style of Mr. Buckram and his men. Had it not been for the brandy 

 within and the lookers-on without, there is no saying but Caingey 

 would have declined the horse's further acquaintance. As it was, he 

 quickly repeated his attempt at the stirrup with the same sort of 



