mr. sponge's SPORTING TOUR. 227 



spatched Jack to the Over-shoes-over-boots station with tne dog-cart, 

 and told him he would be sure to find a 'bus, or to get some sort of 

 conveyance at the Squandercash station to take him up to Pumng- 

 ton's ; at all events, his lordship added to himself, " If he doesn't, 

 it '11 do him no harm to walk, and he can easily get a boy to carry 

 his bag." 



The latter was the case ; for though the station-master assured 

 Jack, on his arrival at Squandercash, that their was a 'bus, or a mail 

 gig, or a something to every other train, there was nothing in con- 

 nexion with the one that brought him, nor would he undertake 

 to leave his carpet bag at Hanby House before breakfast time the 

 next morning. 



Jack was highly enraged, and proceeded to squint his eyes inside 

 out, and abuse all railways, and chairmen, and directors, and secre- 

 taries, and clerks, and porters, vowing that railways were the greatest 

 nuisances under the sun — that they were a perfect impediment instead 

 of a facility to travelling — and declared that formerly a gentleman 

 had nothing to do but order his four horses, and have them turned 

 out at every stage as he came up, instead of being stopped in the 

 ridicklous manner he then was; and he strutted and stamped about 

 the station as if he would put a stop to the whole line. 



His vehemence and big talk operated favourably on the cockney 

 station-master, who, thinking he must be a duke, or some great man, 

 began to consider how to get him forwarded. It being only a thinly- 

 populated district — though there was a station equal to any mercan- 

 tile emergency, indeed to the requirements of the whole county — he 

 ran the resources of the immediate neighbourhood through his mind, 

 and at length was obliged to admit — humbly and respectfully — that 

 he really was afraid Martha Muggins's donkey was the only available 

 article. 



Jack fumed and bounced at the very mention of such a thing, 

 vowing that it was a downright insult to propose it ; and he was so 

 bumptious that the station-master, who had nothing to gain by the 

 transaction, sought the privacy of the electric telegraph office, and 

 left him to vent the balance of his wrath upon the porters. 



Of course they could do nothing more than -the king of their 

 little colony had suggested; and finding there was no help for it, 

 Mr. Spraggon at last submitted to the humiliation, and set off to 

 follow young Muggins with his bag on the donkey, in his best top- 

 boots, worn under his trousers — an unpleasant operation to any one, 

 but especially to a man like Jack, who preferred wearing his tops 

 out against the flaps of his friends' saddles, rather than his soles by 

 walking upon them. However, necessity said yes; and cocking his 

 flat hat jauntily on his head, he stuck a cheroot in his mouth, and 

 went smoking and swaggering on, looking — or rather squinting — 



