414 mr. sponge's sporting tour. 



The cry is still, "They come! they coine ! " See at a hand- 

 gallop, with his bay pony in a white lather, rides Pacey, grinning 

 from ear to ear, with his red-backed betting-book peeping out of the 

 breast pocket of his brown cutaway. He is staring and gaping to 

 see who is looking at him. 



Pacey has made such a book as none but a wooden-headed boy 

 like himself could make. He has been surfeited with tips. Peeping 

 Tom had advised him to back Daddy Longlegs ; and, nullus error ; 

 Sneaking Joe has counselled him that the " Baronet" will be " Cali- 

 fornia without cholera, and gold without danger; " while Jemmy 

 something, the jockey, who advertises that his " tongue is not for 

 falsehood framed," though we should think it was framed for nothing 

 else, has urged him to back Parvo to half the amount of the national 

 debt, 



Altogether, Pacey has made such a mess that he cannot possibly 

 win, and may lose almost any sum from a thousand pounds, down to 

 a hundred and eighty. Mr. Sponge has got on well with him, through 

 the medium of Jack Spraggon. 



Pacey is now going to what he calls " compare" — see that he has 

 got his bets booked right ; and, throwing his right leg over his cob's 

 neck, he blobs on to the ground ; and leaving the pony to take care 

 of itself, disappears in the crowd. 



What a hubbub ! what roarings, and shoutings, and recognisings ! 

 " Bless my heart ! who'd have thought of seeing you ? " and, " By 

 jingo ! what's sent you here ? " 



" My dear Waffles," cries Jawleyford, rushing up to our Laverick 

 Wells friend (who is looking very debauched), "I'm overjoyed to see 

 you. Do come up-stairs and see Mrs. Jawleyford and the dear girls. 

 It was only last night we were talking about you." And so Jawley- 

 ford hurries Mr. Waffles off, just as Waffles is in extremis about his 

 horse. 



Looking around the scene there seems to be everybody that we 

 have had the pleasure of introducing to the reader in the course of 

 Mr. Sponge's Tour. Mr. and Mrs. Springwheat in their dog-cart, 

 Mrs. Springey's figure, looking as though " wheat had got above forty, 

 my lord ; " old Jog and his handsome wife in the ugly old phaeton, 

 well garnished with children, and a couple of sticks in the rough 

 peeping out of the apron, Gustavus James held up in his mother's 

 arms, with the curly blue feather nodding over his nose. There is 

 also Farmer Peastraw, and faces that a patient inspection enables us 

 to appropriate to Dribble, and Hook, and Capon, and Calcot, and 

 Lumpleg, and Crane of Crane Hall, and Charley Slapp of red-coat 

 times — people look so different in plain clothes to what they do in 

 hunting ones. Here, too, is George Cheek, running down with per- 

 spiration, having run over from Dr. Latherington's for which he will 



