oks, 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 exacting of the Jew
tribe would 'do' for twenty per cent. Mr. Sponge determined to keep the
game alive, and getting Hercules and Multum 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 friendship with our
hero at Laverick Wells, was Mr. Jawleyford, of Jawleyford 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 September, 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 partridge and pheasant shooting you ever saw in your
life; Norfolk can show nothing to what I can. Now, my good fellow, say the
word; _do_ say you'll come, and then it will be a settled thing, and I
shall look forward to it with such pleasure!'

He was equally magnanimous about hunting, though, like a good many people
who have 'had their hunts,' he pretended that his day was over, though he
was a most zealous promoter of the sport. So he asked everybody who did
hunt to come and see him; and what with his hearty, affable manner, and the
unlimited nature of his invitations, he generally passed for a deuced
hospitable, good sort of fellow, and came in for no end of dinners and
oth