‘Yes, sir! here, sir!’ exclaimed that invaluable servant, tidying her pink-ribboned cap as she hurried into the passage below. Looking up, she caught sight of her master’s great sallow chaps hanging like a flitch of bacon over the garret banister.

‘Oh, Murry Ann,’ bellowed Mr Jog, at the top of his voice, still holding his hands to his mouth, as soon as he saw her, ‘Oh, Murry Ann, you’d better get the (puff) breakfast ready; I think he (gasp) Mr Sponge will be (wheezing) away to day.’

‘Yes, sir,’ replied Mary Ann.

‘And tell Bartholomew to get his washin’ bills in.’

‘He harn’t had no washin’ done,’ replied Mary Ann, raising her voice to correspond with that of her master.

‘Then his bill for postage,’ replied Mr Jog, in the same tone.

‘He harn’t had no letters neither,’ replied Mary Ann.

‘Oh, then, just get the breakfast ready,’ rejoined Jog; adding, ‘he’ll be (wheezing) away us soon as he gets it, I (puff) expect.’

‘Will be,’ said Mr Sponge to himself, as, with throbbing head, he lay tumbling about in bed, alleviating the recollections of the previous day’s debauch with an occasional dive into his old friend Mogg. Corporeally, he was in bed at Puddingpote Bower, but, mentally, he was at the door of the Goose and Gridiron, in St Paul’s Churchyard, waiting for the three o’clock ’bus, coming from the Bank to take him to Isleworth Gate.

Jog’s bellow to ‘Bartholo-m-e-w’ interrupted the journey, just as in imagination Mr Sponge was putting his foot on the wheel and hallooing to the driver to hand him the strap to help him on to the box.

‘Will he,’ said Mr Sponge to himself, as he heard Jog’s reiterated assertion that he would be wheezing away that day. ‘Wish you may get it, old boy,’ added he, tucking the now backless Mogg under his pillow, and turning over for a snooze.

When he got down, he found the party ranged at breakfast, minus the interesting prodigy, Gustavus James, whom Sponge proceeded to enquire after as soon as he had made his obeisance to his host and hostess, and distributed a round of daubed comfits to the rest of the juvenile party.

‘But where’s my little friend, Augustus James?’ asked he, on arriving at the wonder’s high-chair by the side of mamma. -- ‘Where’s my little friend, Augustus James?’ asked he, with an air of concern.

‘Oh, Gustavus James,’ replied Mrs Jog, with an emphasis on Gustavus; ‘Gustavus James is not very well this morning; had a little indigestion during the night.’

‘Poor little hound,’ observed Mr Sponge, filling his mouth with hot kidney, glad to be rid for a time of the prodigy. ‘I thought I heard a row when I came home, which was rather late for an early man like me, but the fact was, nothing would serve Sir Harry but I should go with him to get some refreshment at a tenant’s of his; and we got on, talking first about one thing, and then about another, and the time slipped away so quickly, that day was gone before I knew where I was; and though Sir Harry was most anxious -- indeed, would hardly take a refusal -- for me to go home with him, I felt that, being a guest here, I couldn’t do it -- at least, not then; so I got my horse, and tried to find my way with such directions as the farmer gave me, and soon lost my way, for the moon was uncertain, and the country all strange both to me and my horse.’

‘What farmer was it?’ asked Jog, with the butter streaming down the gutters of his chin from a mouthful of thick toast.