Mr. Sponge's Sporting Tour

along Oxford Street at a somewhat improved pace to his usual wont-had paused for a shorter period in the ''bus' perplexed 'Circus,' and pulled up seldomer than usual between the Circus and the lim

. Sponge regarded them not. He had a sort of ''bus' panorama in his head, knew the run of them all, whence they started, where they stopped, where they watered, where they changed,

ets are out of the windows, and the row increases. Six coachmen cutting and storming, six cads sawing the air, sixteen ladies in flowers screaming, six-and-twenty sturdy passengers swearing they will 'fine them all,' and Mr. Sponge is the only cool person in the scene. He doesn't rush into the throng and 'jump in,' for fear the 'bus should extricate itself and drive on without him; he doesn't make confusion worse confounded by intimating his be

en the houses. First, it is all close huddle with both. Austere iron railings guard the subterranean kitchen areas, and austere looks indicate a desire on the part of the passengers to gu

nservatories appear and conversation strikes up; then come the exclusiveness of villas, some detached and others running out at last into real pure green fields studded with trees and picturesq

of grass country, sprinkled with fallows and turnip-fields. We should state that this unwonted journey was a desire to pay a visit to Mr. Benjamin B

es; but on the present occasion, Mr. Sponge sought his services in the capacity of a letter rather than a seller of horses. Mr. Sponge wanted to job a couple of plausible-looking horses, with the option of buying them, provided he (Mr. Sponge) could

g of small, honey-suckled, rose-entwined brick houses, with small, flat, pan-tiled roofs, and lattice-windows; and, hard by, a large hay-stack, three times the size of the house, or a desolate barn, half as big as all the rest of the buildin

the regular 'chaws,' with a good deal of the quick, suspicious, sour sauciness of the low London resident. If you can get an answer from them at a

ters and horse-dealers have these retreats in the country, and the smaller ones pretend to have, from whence, in due course, they can draw any sort of a

Benjamin Buckram, sometimes in the hands of his assignees, sometimes in those of his c

ined to a continual fumble in the pockets of his drab trousers, gave him the air of a 'well-to-do-in-the-world' sort of man. Moreover, he sported a velvet collar to his blue coat, a more imposing ornament t

shine, has a very money-making impression on the world. It shows a spirit superior to feelings of paltry economy, and we think a person would be much mo

e kindness to consider Mr.

lating the arrival of his occasional lodgers, Doe and Roe. 'Ah, Mr. Sponge!' exclaimed he, with well-assumed gaiety; 'you should have been here yesterday; sent away two sich osses-perfect 'unters-the werry best I do think I ever saw in my life

d-fashioned wire bell-pull in the midst of buggy, four-in-hand, and other whips, hanging in t

re and there a stunted fox-brush, tossing about as a duster. The ill-ventilated room reeked with the effluvia of stale smoke, and the faded green baize

adapted to the occasion. Having deposited his hat on the floor, taken his left leg u

Derby, and seven on the Leger, the best part of my year's income, indeed; and I just want to hire two or three horses for the seaso

well to have 'em smart, and the ticket, in short; howsomever, I must do the best I can for you, and if there's nothin' in that tickles your fancy, why, you must give me a few days to see if I can arrange an exchange with some other gent; but the present is like to be a werry haggiwatin' season; had more happlications for osses nor ever I remembers, and I've been a dealer now, man and boy, turned of eight-and-thirty years; but young gents is whim

pples about to be examined, and the heavy flap of the coach-house door announcing that all was ready, he forthwith led the way through a door in a brick wall into a little three