“Vere's my instrument o' destruction?” enquired the lively Augustus, when he had succeeded in mounting to his seat.
“Stow'd him in the boot!”
The coachman mounted and drove off; the sportsmen chatting and laughing as they passed through 'merry Islington.'
“Von't ve keep the game alive!” exclaimed Spriggs, slapping his friend upon the back.
“I dessay you will,” remarked the caustic old boy with the pigtail; “for it's little you'll kill, young gentlemen, and that's my belief!”
“On'y let's put 'em up, and see if we don't knock 'em down, as cleverly as Mister Robins does his lots,” replied Spriggs, laughing at his own wit.
Arrived at Highgate, the old gentleman, with a step-fatherly anxiety, bade them take care of the 'spring-guns' in their perambulations.
“Thankee, old boy,” said Spriggs, “but we ain't so green as not to know that spring guns, like spring radishes, go off long afore Autumn, you know!”
CHAPTER II.
The Death of a little Pig, which proves a great Bore!