‘I’ve only bachelor ’commodation to offer you; but p’raps you’ll not mind roughing it a bit?’ observed Romford.

‘Oh, faith, not I!’ replied Sponge, thinking of the luxuries of Puffington’s bachelor habitation. ‘What sort of stables have you?’ asked our friend.

‘Capital stables -- excellent stables!’ replied the shooter; ‘stalls six feet in the clear, by twelve dip [deep], iron racks, oak stall-posts covered with zinc, beautiful oats, capital beans, splendacious hay -- won without a shower!’

‘Bravo!’ exclaimed Sponge, thinking he had lit on his legs, and might snap his fingers at Jog and his hints. He’d take the high hand, and give Jog up.

‘I’m your man!’ said Sponge, in high glee.

‘When will you come?’ asked Romford.

‘Tomorrow!’ replied Sponge, firmly.

‘So be it,’ rejoined his proferred host; and, with another hearty swing of the arm, the newly made friends parted.

Charley Romford, or Facey, as he was commonly called, from his being the admitted most impudent man in the country, was a great, round-faced, coarse-featured, prize-fighting sort of fellow, who lived chiefly by his wits, which he exercised in all the legitimate lines of industry -- poaching, betting, boxing, horse-dealing, cards, quoits -- anything that came uppermost. That he was a man of enterprise, we need hardly add, when he had formed a scheme for doing our Sponge -- a man that we do not think any of our readers would trouble themselves to try a ‘plant’ upon.

This impudent Facey, as if in contradiction of terms, was originally intended for a civil engineer; but having early in life voted himself heir to his uncle, Mr Gilroy, of Queercove Hill, a great cattle-jobber, with a ‘small independence of his own’ -- three hundred a year, perhaps, which a kind world called six -- Facey thought he would just hang about until his uncle was done with his shoes, and then be lord of Queercove Hill.

Now, ‘me Oncle Gilroy,’ of whom Facey was constantly talking, had a left-handed wife and a promising family in the sylvan retirement of St John’s Wood, whither he used to retire after his business in ‘Smi’fiel’ ’ was over; so that Facey, for once, was out in his calculations. Gilroy, however, being as knowing as ‘his nevvey,’ as he called him, just encouraged Facey in his shooting, fishing, and idle propensities generally, doubtless finding it more convenient to have his fish and game for nothing than to pay for them.

Facey, having the apparently inexhaustible sum of a thousand pounds, began life as a fox-hunter -- in a very small way, to be sure -- more for the purpose of selling horses than anything else; but, having succeeded in ‘doing’ all the do-able gentlemen, both with the ‘Tip and Go’ and Cranerfield hounds, his occupation was gone, it requiring an extended field -- such as our friend Sponge roamed -- to carry on cheating in horses for any length of time. Facey was soon blown, his name in connection with a horse being enough to prevent anyone looking at him. Indeed, we question that there is any less desirable mode of making, or trying to make money, than by cheating or even dealing in horses. Many people fancy themselves cheated, whatever they get; while the man who is really cheated never forgets it, and proclaims it to the end of time. Moreover, no one can go on cheating in horses for any length of time, without putting himself in the power of his groom; and let those who have seen how servants lord it over each other say how they would like to subject themselves to similar treatment. -- But to our story.

Facey Romford had now a splendid milk-white horse, well-known in Mr Nobbington’s and Lord Leader’s hunts as Mr Hobler, but who Facey kindly rechristened the ‘Nonpareil,’ which the now rising price of oats, and falling state of his finances, made him particularly anxious to get rid of, ere the horse performed the equestrian feat of ‘eating its head off.’ He was a very hunter-like looking horse, but his misfortune