' meaning our friend Jog, 'or he may take a fancy to
go, and we shall never get there,' alluding to their former excursion.

'No, no,' replied Mr. Leather, leaving the room.

Mr. Sponge then arrayed himself in his hunting costume--scarlet coat, green
tie, blue vest, gosling-coloured cords, and brown tops; and was greeted
with a round of applause from the little Jogs as he entered the
breakfast-room. Gustavus James would handle him; and, considering that his
paws were all over raspberry jam, our friend would as soon have dispensed
with his attentions. Mrs. Jog was all smiles, and Jog all scowls.

A little after ten our friend, cigar in mouth, was in the saddle. Mrs. Jog,
with Gustavus James in her arms, and all the children clustering about,
stood in the passage to see him start, and watch the capers and caprioles
of the piebald, as he ambled down the avenue.

'Nine miles--nine miles,' muttered Mr. Sponge to himself, as he passed
through the Lodge and turned up the Quarryburn road; 'do it in an hour well
enough,' said he, sticking spurs into the hack, and cantering away.

Having kept this pace up for about five miles, till he thought from the
view he had taken of the map it was about time to be turning, he hailed a
blacksmith in his shop, who, next to saddlers, are generally the most
intelligent people about hounds, and asked how far it was to Sir Harry's?

'Eight miles,' replied the man, in a minute. 'Impossible!' exclaimed Mr.
Sponge. 'It was only nine at starting, and I've come I don't know how
many.'

The next person Mr. Sponge met told him it was ten miles; the third, after
asking him where he had come from, said he was a stranger in the country,
and had never heard of the place; and, what with Mr. Leather's original
mis-statement, misdirections from other people, and mistakes of his own, it
was more good luck than good management that got Mr. Sponge to Nonsuch
House in time.

[Illustration: MR. SPONGE STARTING FROM THE BOWER]

The fact was, the whole hunt was knocked up in a hurry. Sir Harry, and the
choice spirits by whom he was surrounded, had not finished celebrating the
triumphs of the Snobston Green day, and as it was not likely that the
hounds would be out again soon, the people of the hunting establishment
were taking their ease. Watchorn had gone to be entertained at a public
supper, given by the poachers and fox-stealers of the village of Bark-shot,
as a 'mark of respect for his abilities as a spor