“Couldn’t you manage to get him to go?” asked Mr. Puffington of his valet.
“Don’t know, sir. I could try, sir—believe he’s bad to move, sir,” said the valet.
Driven to despair, the host “scrawled a miserable-looking note, explaining how very ill he was, how he regretted being deprived of Mr. Sponge’s agreeable society—hoped he would come another time,” and so on. Even the “sponger” felt the difficulty of parrying such a palpable notice to quit. “He went to bed sorely perplexed,” and in his waking moments trying to remember “what sportsmen had held out the hand of good fellowship and hinted at hoping to have the pleasure of seeing him”; he could think of no one to whom he could volunteer a visit. But Fortune favours the brave sponger, as she often does unworthy people, and in Mr. Jogglebury Crowdey, an eccentric individual whose acquaintance Sponge had made in the hunting-field, he found another host. At the suggestion of Mrs. Jogglebury, who, without the slightest reason, had taken it into her head that Mr. Sponge was a wealthy man, and would make a satisfactory godfather to one of her children, Mr. Jogglebury called on Mr. Sponge at the Puffington mansion, and invited him to “pay us a visit.”
No sooner does our hero grasp the situation than he says:
“Well, you’re a devilish good fellow, and I’ll tell you what, as I am sure you mean what you say, I’ll take you at your word and go at once.”
And in this determination he persists, though Mr. J. pleads for some delay, as Mrs. Jogglebury Crowdey requires some little time for preparation in receiving so distinguished a guest.
The visit to Puddingpote Bower, as the Jogglebury dwelling was called, proved as unfortunate as the previous visits; the more people saw of Mr. Sponge the less they liked him, and this time the dislike was mutual. “Jog and Sponge,” says the author, “were soon most heartily sick of each other.” Mr. Sponge soon began to think that it was not worth while staying at Puddingpote Bower for the mere sake of his keep, “seeing there was no hunting to be had from it.”
Within twelve or thirteen miles from the Bower there lived Sir Harry Scattercash, a very fast young gentleman indeed. He kept “an ill-supported pack of hounds, that were not kept upon any fixed principles; their management was only of the scrimmaging order,” but Mr. Sponge, scenting an invitation, determined to make one amongst the field.
In his attempt to “go it,” my lord “was ably assisted by Lady Scattercash, late the lovely and elegant Miss Glitters, of the Theatre Royal, Sadler’s Wells. Lady Scattercash could ride—indeed, she used to do scenes in the circle (two horses and a flag), and she could drive, and smoke, and sing, and was possessed of many other accomplishments.”
What a winning creature Leech has made of her, and the scarcely less delightful little tiger behind her, may be seen in the illustration which the law of copyright prevents me from introducing, as it also prohibits the appearance here of Sir Harry, her husband, the happy possessor of the charming Lady Scattercash.