disposed of, Mr Crowdey, grasping the club-end, struck the other forcibly against the ground, exclaiming, ‘There! -- there’s a (puff) stick! Who knows what that (puff -- wheeze) stick may be worth someday?’

He then bundled into his carriage and drove on.

Two more stoppages marked their arrival at the other sticks, which being duly captured and fastened within the straps of the carriage-apron, Mr Crowdey drove on somewhat more at ease in his mind, at all events somewhat comforted at the thoughts of having increased his wealth. He did not become talkative -- indeed that was not his forte, but he puffed into his shirt-frill, and made a few observations, which, if they did not possess much originality, at all events showed that he was not asleep.

‘Those are draining-tiles,’ said he, after a hearty stare at a cart-load. Then about five minutes after he blew again, and said, ‘I don’t think (puff) that (wheeze) draining without (gasp) manuring will constitute good farming (puff).’

So he jolted and wheezed, and jerked and jagged the old quadruped’s mouth, occasionally hissing between his teeth, and stamping against the bottom of the carriage, when other persuasive efforts failed to induce it to keep up the semblance of a trot. At last the ill-supported hobble died out into a walk, and Mr Crowdey, complacently dropping his fat hand on his fat knees, seemed to resign himself to his fate.

So they crawled along the up-and-downy piece of road below Poplarton plantations, Mr Jogglebury keeping a sharp eye upon the underwood for sticks. After passing these, they commenced the gradual ascent of Roundington Hill, when a sudden sweep of the road brought them in view of the panorama of the rich Vale of Butterflower.

‘There’s a snug-looking box,’ observed Sponge, as he at length espied a confused jumble of gable-ends and chimney-pots, rising from amidst a clump of Scotch firs and other trees, looking less like a farmhouse than anything he had seen.

‘That’s my house (puff); that’s Puddingpote Bower (wheeze),’ replied Crowdey, slowly and pompously, adding an ‘e’ to the syllable, to make it sound better, the haddocks, hashed mutton, and all the horrors of impromptu hospitality rushing upon his mind.

Things began to look worse the nearer he got home. He didn’t care to aggravate the old animal into a trot. He again wondered whether Mrs J. would be pleased at the success of his mission, or angry at the unexpected coming.

‘Where are the stables?’ asked Sponge, as he scanned the in-and-out irregularities of the building.

‘Stables (wheeze), stables (puff),’ repeated Crowdey, thinking of his troubles -- of its being washing-day, and Mary Ann, or Murry Ann, as he called her, the under-butler, being engaged; of Bartholomew Badger having the horse and fe-a-ton to clean, &c. -- ‘stables,’ repeated he for the third time; ‘stables are at the back, behind, in fact; you’ll see a (puff) vane -- a (wheeze) fox, on the top.’

‘Ah, indeed!’ replied Mr Sponge, brightening up, thinking there would be old hay and corn.

They now came to a half-Swiss, half-Gothic little cottage of a lodge, and the old horse turned instinctively into the open white gate with pea-green bands.

‘Here’s Mrs Crow-Crow-Crowdey!’ gasped Jogglebury, convulsively, as a tall woman, in flare-up red and yellow stunner tartan, with a swarm of little children, similarly attired, suddenly appeared at an angle of the road, the lady handling a great alpaca umbrella-looking parasol in the stand-and-deliver style.

‘What’s kept you?’ exclaimed she, as the vehicle got within ear-shot. ‘What’s kept you?’ repeated she, in a sharper key, holding her parasol across the road, but taking no notice of our friend Sponge, who, in