about to
dawn upon him.

Having now introduced our hero to our male and female friends, under his
interesting pursuits of fox and fortune-hunter, it becomes us to say a few
words as to his qualifications for carrying them on.

Mr. Sponge was a good-looking, rather vulgar-looking man. At a
distance--say ten yards--his height, figure, and carriage gave him somewhat
of a commanding appearance, but this was rather marred by a jerky, twitchy,
uneasy sort of air, that too plainly showed he was not the natural, or what
the lower orders call the _real_ gentleman. Not that Sponge was shy. Far
from it. He never hesitated about offering to a lady after a three days'
acquaintance, or in asking a gentleman to take him a horse in over-night,
with whom he might chance to come in contact in the hunting-field. And he
did it all in such a cool, off-hand, matter-of-course sort of way, that
people who would have stared with astonishment if anybody else had hinted
at such a proposal, really seemed to come into the humour and spirit of the
thing, and to look upon it rather as a matter of course than otherwise.
Then his dexterity in getting into people's houses was only equalled by the
difficulty of getting him out again, but this we must waive for the present
in favour of his portraiture.

In height, Mr. Sponge was above the middle size--five feet eleven or
so--with a well borne up, not badly shaped, closely cropped oval head, a
tolerably good, but somewhat receding forehead, bright hazel eyes, Roman
nose, with carefully tended whiskers, reaching the corners of a well-formed
mouth, and thence descending in semicircles into a vast expanse of hair
beneath the chin.

Having mentioned Mr. Sponge's groomy gait and horsey propensities, it were
almost needless to say that his dress was in the sporting style--you saw
what he was by his clothes. Every article seemed to be made to defy the
utmost rigour of the elements. His hat (Lincoln and Bennett) was hard and
heavy. It sounded upon an entrance-hall table like a drum. A little magical
loop in the lining explained the cause of its weight. Somehow, his hats
were never either old or new--not that he bought them second-hand, but
when he got a new one he took its 'long-coat' off, as he called it, with a
singeing lamp, and made it look as if it had undergone a few probationary
showers.

When a good London hat recedes to a certain point, it gets no worse; it is
not like a country-made thing that keep