MR. sponge's sporting tour. 399 



made his way up to Miss Glitters with the brush, exclaiming, " We'll 

 put this in your hat, alongside the cock's feathers." 



The fair lady leant towards him, and as he adjusted it becoming- 

 ly in her hat, looking at her bewitching eyes, her lovely face, and 

 feeling the sweet fragrance of her breath, a something shot through 

 Mr. Sponge's pull-devil, pull-baker coat, his corduroy waistcoat, his 

 Eureka shirt, Angola vest, and penetrated the very cockles of his 

 heart. He gave her such a series of smacking kisses as startled her 

 horse and astonished a poacher who happened to be hid in the adjoin- 

 ing hedge. 



Sponge was never so happy in his life. He could have stood on 

 his head, or been guilty of any sort of extravagance, short of wast- 

 ing his money. Oh, he was happy ! Oh, he was joyous ! He was 

 intoxicated with pleasure. As he eyed his angelic charmer, her lus- 

 trous eyes, her glowing cheeks, her pearly teeth, the bewitching 

 fulness of her elegant tournure, and thought of the masterly way 

 she rode the run — above all, of the dashing style in which she charged 

 the mill-race — he felt a something quite different to anything he had 

 experienced with any of the buxom widows or lackadaisacal misses 

 whom he could just love or not, according to circumstances, among 

 whom his previous experience had lain. Miss Glitters, he knew, had 

 nothing, and yet he felt he could not do without her; the puzzlement 

 of his mind was, how the deuce they should manage matters — "make 

 tongue and buckle meet," as he elegantly phrased it. 



It is pleasant to hear a bachelor's pros and cons on the subject 

 of matrimony; how the difficulties of the gentleman out of love 

 vanish or change into advantages with the one in — " Oh, I would 

 never think of marrying without a couple of thousand a year at the 

 very least!" exclaims young Fastly. "J can't do without four 

 hunters and a hack, I can't do without a valet. / can't do without 

 a' brougham. / must belong to half-a-dozen clubs. I'll not marry 

 any woman who can't keep me comfortable — bachelors can live upon 

 nothing — bachelors are welcome everywhere — very different thing with 

 a wife. Frightful things milliner's bills — fifty guineas for a dress, 

 twenty for a bonnet — ladies' maids are the very devil — never satis- 

 fied — far worse to please than their mistresses." And between the 

 whiffs of a cigar he hums the old saw, 



" Needles and pins, needles and pins, 

 When a man marries his sorrow begins." 



Now take him on the other tack — Fast is smitten. 



" 'Ord hang it ! a married man can live on very little,'* solilo- 

 quises our friend. " A nice lovely creature to keep one at home. 

 Hunting's all humbug ; it's only the flash of the thing that makes 

 one follow it. Then the danger far more than counterbalances the 

 pleasure. Awful places one has to ride over, to be sure, or submit 



