274 mr. sponge's sporting tour. 



we don't know how many thousand pounds ; and as he cut, and 

 puffed, and wheezed, and modelled, with a volume of Buffon, or the 

 picture of some eminent man before him, he chuckled, and thought 

 how well he was providing for his family. He had been at it so long, 

 and argued so stoutly, that Mrs. Jogglebury Crowdey, if not quite 

 convinced of the accuracy of his calculations, nevertheless thought it 

 well to encourage his hunting predilections, inasmuch as it brought 

 him in contact with people he would not otherwise meet, who, she 

 thought, might possibly be useful to their children. Accordingly, 

 she got him his breakfast betimes on hunting-mornings, charged his 

 pockets with currant-buns, and saw to the mending of his moleskins 

 when he came home, after any of those casualties that occur as well 

 in the chase as in gibbey-stick hunting. 



A stranger being a marked man in a rural country, Mr. Sponge 

 excited more curiosity in Mr. Jogglebury Crowdey 's mind than Mr. 

 Jogglebury Crowdy did in Mr. Sponge's. In truth, Jogglebury was 

 one of those unsportsman like beings, that a regular fox-hunter would 

 think it waste of words to inquire about, and if Mr. Sponge saw him, 

 he did not recollect him ; while, on the. other hand, Mr. Jogglebury 

 Crowdey went home very full of our friend. Now, Mrs. Jogglebury 

 Crowdey was a fine, bustling, managing woman, with a large family, 

 for whom she exerted all her energies, to procure desirable god-papas 

 and mammas ; and, no sooner did she hear of this new-comer, than 

 she longed to appropriate him for god-papa to their youngest son. 



" Jog, my dear," said she to her spouse, as they sat at tea ; " it 

 would be well to look after him." 



" What for, my dear ? " asked Jog, who was staring a stick, with 

 a half-finished head of Lord Brougham for a handle, out of counte- 

 nance. 



" What for, Jog ? Why, can't you guess ? " 



" No," replied Jog, doggedly. 



" No ! " ejaculated his spouse. " Why, Jog, you certainly are 

 the stupidest man in existence." 



" Not necessarily ! " replied Jog, with a jerk of his head and a 

 puff into his shirt-frill that set it all in a flutter. 



" Not necessarily ! " replied Mrs. Jogglebury, who was what they 

 call a " spirited woman," in the same rising tone as before. " Not 

 necessarily ! but I say necessarily — yes, necessarily. Do you hear 

 me, Mr. Jogglebury?" 



" I hear you," replied Jogglebury, scornfully, with another jerk, 

 and another puff into the frill. 



The two then sat silent for some minutes, Jogglebury still con- 

 templating the progressing head of Lord Brougham, and recalling 

 the eye and features that some five and twenty years before had 

 nearly withered him in a breach of promise action, " Smiler v. 





