78 MR. sponge's sporting tour. 



CHAPTER XIII. 



A NEW SCHEME. 



Our friend Soapy was now in good feather ; he had got a large price 

 for his good-for-nothing horse, with a very handsome bonus for not 

 getting him back, making him better off than he had been for some 

 time. Gentlemen of his calibre are generally extremely affluent in 

 every thing except cash. They have bills without end — bills that 

 nobody will touch, and book debts in abundance — book debts entered 

 with metallic pencils in curious little clasped pocket-books, with such 

 utter disregard of method that it would puzzle an accountant to comb 

 them into anything like shape. 



It is true, what Mr. Sponge got from Mr. Waffles were bills — but 

 they were good bills, and of such reasonable date as the most exact- 

 ing of the Jew tribe would "do " for twenty per cent. Mr. Sponge 

 determined to keep the game alive, and, getting Hercules and Mul- 

 tum in Parvo together again, he added a showy piebald hack, that 

 Buckram had just got from some circus people, who had not been 

 able to train him to their work. 



The question now was, where to manoeuvre this imposing stud — 

 a problem that Mr. Sponge quickly solved. 



Among the many strangers who rushed into indiscriminate friend- 

 ship with our hero at Laverick Wells, was Mr. Jawleyford, of Jaw- 



leyford Court, in shire. Jawleyford was a great humbug. He 



was a fine, off-hand, open-hearted, cheery sort of fellow, who was 

 always delighted to see you, would start at the view, and stand with 

 open arms in the middle of the street, as though quite overjoyed at 

 the meeting. Though he never gave dinners, nor anything where he 

 was, he asked everybody, at least everybody who did give them, to 

 visit him at Jawleyford Court. If a man was fond of fishing, he 

 must come to Jawleyford Court, he must indeed ; he would take no 

 refusal, he wouldn't leave him alone till he promised. He would 

 show him such fishing — no waters in the world to compare with his. 

 The Shannon and the Tweed were not to be spoken of in the same 

 day as his waters in the Swiftley. 



Shooting, the same way. " By jove ! are you a shooter ? Well, 

 I'm delighted to hear it. Well, now, we shall be at home all Sep- 

 tember, and up to the middle of October, and you must just come 

 to us at your own time, and I will give you some of the finest par- 

 tridge and pheasant shooting you ever saw in your life ; Norfolk can 

 show nothing to what I can. Now, my good fellow say the word ; 



