to which everybody laughs at a man that is kicked off. All these considerations rushed to his mind, and made him determine not to brook the mirth of the guests as well as the servants.

Accordingly he borrowed a hat and started off home, and seeking his guardian, Major Screw, confided to him the position of affairs. The major, who was a man of the world, forthwith commenced a negotiation with Mr Sponge, who, after a good deal of haggling, and not until the horse had shot the major over his head, too, at length, as a great favour, consented to take fifty pounds to rescind the bargain, accompanying his kindness by telling the major to advise his ward never to dabble in horseflesh after dinner; a piece of advice that we also very respectfully tender to our juvenile readers.

And Sponge shortly after sent Spraggon a five-pound note as his share of the transaction

When Mr Puffington read Messrs Sponge and Spraggon’s account of the run with his hounds, in the Swillingford paper, he was perfectly horrified; words cannot describe the disgust that he felt. It came upon him quite by surprise, for he expected to be immortalised in some paper or work of general circulation, in which the Lords Loosefish, Sir Toms, and Sir Harrys of former days might recognise the spirited doings of their early friend. He wanted the superiority of his establishment, the excellence of his horses, the stoutness of his hounds, and the polish of his field, proclaimed, with perhaps a quiet cut at the Flat- Hat gentry; instead of which he had a mixed medley sort of a mess, whose humdrum monotony was only relieved by the absurdities and errors with which it was crammed. At first, Mr Puffington could not make out what it meant, whether it was a hoax for the purpose of turning run-writing into ridicule, or it had suffered mutilation at the hands of the printer. Calling a good scent an exquisite perfume looked suspicious of a hoax, but then seasonal fox for seasoned fox, scorning to cry for scoring to cry, bay fox for bag fox, grunting for hunting, thrashing for trashing, rests for casts, and other absurdities, looked more like accident than design.

These are the sort of errors that non-sporting compositors might easily make, one term being as much like English to them as the other, though amazingly different to the eye or the ear of a sportsman. Mr Puffington was thoroughly disgusted. He was sick of hounds and horses, and Bragg, and hay and corn, and kennels and meal, and saddles and bridles; and now, this absurdity seemed to cap the whole thing. He was ill-prepared for such a shock. The exertion of successive dinner-giving -- above all, of bachelor dinner-giving -- and that too in the country, where men sit, talk, talk, talking, sip, sip, sipping, and ‘just another bottle-ing’; more, we believe, from want of something else to do than from any natural inclination to exceed; the exertion, we say, of such parties had completely unstrung our fat friend, and ill-prepared his nerves for such a shock. Being a great man for his little comforts, he always breakfasted in his dressing- room, which he had fitted up in the most luxurious style, and where he had his newspapers (most carefully ironed out) laid with his letters against he came in. It was late on the morning following our last chapter, ere he thought he had got rid of as much of his winy headache as fitful sleep would carry off, and enveloped himself in a blue and yellow-flowered silk dressing-gown and Turkish slippers. He looked at his letters, and knowing their outsides, left them for future perusal; and sousing himself into the depths of a many- cushioned easy-chair, proceeded to spell his Morning Post -- Tattersall’s advertisements -- ‘Grosjean’s Paletots’-- ‘Mr Albert Smith’ -- ‘Coals, best Stewart Hetton or Lambton’s’ -- ‘Police intelligence’ and such other light reading as does not require any great effort to connect or comprehend.

Then came his breakfast, for which he had very little appetite, though he relished his coffee, and also an anchovy. While daudling over these, he heard sundry wheels grinding about below the window, and the bumping and thumping of boxes, indicative of ‘goings away,’ for which he couldn’t say he felt sorry. He couldn’t even be at the trouble of getting up and going to the window to see who it was that was off, so weary and headachy was he. He rolled and lolled in his chair, now taking a sip of coffee, now a bite of anchovy toast, now considering whether he durst venture on an egg, and again having recourse to the Post. At last having exhausted all the light reading in it, and scanned through the list of hunting appointments, he took up the Swillingford paper to see that they had got his ‘meets’ right for the next week. How astonished he was to find the previous day’s run staring him in the face, headed ‘Splendid Run with Mr Puffington’s Hounds,’ in the imposing type here displayed. ‘Well, that’s quick work, however,’