‘That doesn’t matter,’ replied Sponge; adding, ‘I don’t think I’ll trouble his lordship much more. These Flat Hat gentlemen are not over and above civil, in my opinion.’

‘Well,’ replied Jawleyford, nettled at this thwarting of his attempt, ‘that’s for your consideration. However, as you’ve come, I’ll talk to Mrs Jawleyford, and see if we can get off the Barkington expedition.

‘But don’t get off on my account,’ replied Sponge. ‘I can stay here quite well. I dare say you’ll not be away long.’

This was worse still; it held out no hope of getting rid of him. Jawleyford therefore resolved to try and smoke and starve him out. When our friend went to dress, he found his old apartment, the stateroom, put away, the heavy brocade curtains brown-hollanded, the jugs turned upside down, the bed stripped of its clothes, and the looking-glass laid a-top of it.

The smirking housemaid, who was just rolling the fire-irons up in the hearth-rug, greeted him with a ‘Please, sir, we’ve shifted you into the brown room, east,’ leading the way to the condemned cell that ‘Jack’ had occupied, where a newly-lit fire was puffing out dense clouds of brown smoke, obscuring even the gilt letters on the back of Mogg’s Cab Fares, as the little volume lay on the toilet-table.

‘What’s happened now?’ asked our friend of the maid, putting his arm round her waist, and giving her a hearty squeeze. ‘What’s happened now, that you’ve put me into this dog-hole?’ asked he.

‘Oh! I don’t know,’ replied she, laughing; ‘I s’pose they’re afraid you’ll bring the old rotten curtains down in the other room with smokin’. Master’s a sad old wife,’ added she.

A great change had come over everything. The fare, the lights, the footmen, the everything, underwent grievous diminution. The lamps were extinguished; and the transparent wax gave way to Palmer’s composites, under the mild influence of whose unsearching light the young ladies sported their dashed dresses with impunity. Competition between them, indeed, was about an end. Amelia claimed Mr Sponge, should he be worth having, and should the Scamperdale scheme fail; while Emily, having her mamma’s assurance that he would not do for either of them, resigned herself complacently to what she could not help.

Mr Sponge, on his part, saw that all things portended a close. He cared nothing about the old willow- pattern set usurping the place of the Jawleyford-armed china; but the contents of the dishes were bad, and the wine, if possible, worse. Most palpable Marsala did duty for sherry, and the corked port was again in requisition. Jawleyford was no longer the brisk, cheery-hearted Jawleyford of Laverick Wells, but a crusty, fidgetty, fire-stirring sort of fellow, desperately given to his Morning Post.

Worst of all, when Mr Sponge retired to his den to smoke a cigar and study his dear Cab Fares, he was so suffocated with smoke that he was obliged to put out the fire, notwithstanding the weather was cold, indeed inclining to frost. He lit his cigar notwithstanding; and, as he indulged in it, he ran all the circumstances of his situation through his mind. His pressing invitation -- his magnificent reception -- the attention of the ladies -- and now the sudden change everything had taken. He couldn’t make it out, somehow; but the consequences were plain enough. ‘The fellow’s a humbug,’ at length said he, throwing the cigar-end away, and turning into bed, when the information Watson the keeper gave him, on arriving recurred to his mind, and he was satisfied that Jawleyford was a humbug. It was clear Mr Sponge had made a mistake in coming; the best thing he could do now was to back out, and see if the fair Amelia would take it to heart. In the midst of his cogitations Mr Puffington’s pressing invitation occurred to his mind, and it appeared to be the very thing for him, affording him an immediate asylum within reach of the fair lady, should she be likely to die.

Next day he wrote to volunteer a visit.

Mr Puffington, who was still in ignorance of our friend’s real character, and still believed him to be a second ‘Nimrod’ out on a ‘tour,’ was overjoyed at his letter; and, strange to relate, the same post that