‘Well missed!’ exclaimed Mr Sponge again. ‘You’re what they call a good shooter but a bad hitter.’

‘You’re what they call a (wheeze) fellow,’ growled Jog

He meant to say ‘saucy’ but the word wouldn’t rise. He then commenced re-loading his gun, and lecturing P-o-o-n-to, who still continued his exertions, and inwardly anathematising Mr Sponge. He wished he had left him at home. Then recollecting Mrs Jog, he thought perhaps he was as well where he was. Still his presence made his shoot worse than usual, and there was no occasion for that.

‘Let me have a shot now,’ said Mr Sponge.

‘Shot (puff) -- shot (wheeze); well, take a shot if you choose,’ replied he.

Just as Mr Sponge got the gun, up rose the eleventh bird, and he knocked it over.

‘That’s the way to do it!’ exclaimed Mr Sponge, as the bird fell dead before Ponto.

The excited dog, unused to such descents, snatched it up and ran off. Just as he was getting out of shot, Mr Sponge fired the other barrel at him, causing him to drop the bird and run yelping and howling away. Jog was furious. He stamped, and gasped, and fumed, and wheezed, and seemed like to burst with anger and indignation. Though the dog ran away as hard as he could lick, Jog insisted that he was mortally wounded, and would die. ‘He never saw so (wheeze) a thing done. He wouldn’t have taken twenty pounds for the dog. No, he wouldn’t have taken thirty. Forty wouldn’t have bought him. He was worth fifty of anybody’s money,’ and so he went on, fuming and advancing his value as he spoke.

Mr Sponge stole away to where the dog had dropped the bird; and Mr Jog, availing himself of his absence, retraced his steps down the hill, and struck off home at a much faster pace than he came. Arrived there, he found the dog in the kitchen, somewhat sore from the visitation of the shot, but not sufficiently injured to prevent his enjoying a most liberal plate of stick-jaw pudding supplied by a general contribution of the servants. Jog’s wrath was then turned in another direction, and he blew up for the waste and extravagance of the act, hinting pretty freely that he knew who it was that had set them against it. Altogether he was full of troubles, vexations, and annoyances; and after spending another most disagreeable evening with our friend Sponge, went to bed more determined than ever to get rid of him.