'You'd better eat them,' said she, looking again at the eggs.

'I've (puff) breakfasted, my (wheeze) dear,' replied Jog pompously, wiping his mouth on his claret-coloured bandana.

'They'll be wasted if you don't,' replied Mrs. Jog.

'Well, but they'll be wasted if I eat them without (wheeze) wanting them,'

rejoined he.

'Nonsense, Jog, you always say that,' retorted his wife. 'Nonsense (puff), nonsense (wheeze), I say they _will_.'

'I say they _won't_!' replied Mrs. Jog; 'now will they, Mr. Sponge?'

continued she, appealing to our friend.

'Why, no, not so much as if they went out,' replied our friend, thinking Mrs. Jog was the one to side with.

'Then you'd better (puff, wheeze, gasp) eat them between you,' replied Jog, getting up and strutting out of the room.

Presently he appeared in front of the house, crowned in a pea-green wide-awake, with a half-finished gibbey in his hand; and as Mr. Sponge did not want to offend him, and moreover wanted to get his horses billeted on him, he presently made an excuse for joining him.

Although his horses were standing 'free gratis,' as he called it, at Mr.

Puffington's, and though he would have thought nothing of making Mr.

Leather come over with one each hunting morning, still he felt that if the hounds were much on the other side of Puddingpote Bower, it would not be so convenient as having them there. Despite the egg controversy, he thought a judicious application of soft sawder might accomplish what he wanted. At all events, he would try.

Jog had brought himself short up, and was standing glowering with his hands in his coat-pockets, as if he had never seen the place before.

'Pretty look-out you have here, Mr. Jogglebury,' observed Mr. Sponge, joining him.

'Very,' replied Jog, still cogitating the egg question, and thinking he wouldn't have so many boiled the next day.

'All yours?' asked Sponge, waving his hand as he spoke.

'My (puff) ter-ri-tory goes up to those (wheeze) firs in the gra.s.s-field on the hill,' replied Jogglebury, pompously.

'Indeed,' said Mr. Sponge, 'they are fine trees'; thinking what a finish they would make for a steeple-chase.

'My (puff) uncle, Crowdey, planted those (wheeze) trees,' observed Jog. 'I observe,' added he, 'that it is easier to cut down a (puff) tree than to make it (wheeze) again.' 'I believe you're right,' replied Mr. Sponge; 'that idea has struck me very often.'

'Has it?' replied Jog, puffing voluminously into his frill.

They then advanced a few paces, and, leaning on the iron hurdles, commenced staring at the cows.

'Where are the stables?' at last asked Sponge, seeing no inclination to move on the part of his host.

'Stables (wheeze)--stables (puff),' replied Jogglebury, recollecting Sponge's previous day's proposal--'stables (wheeze) are behind,' said he, 'at the back there (puff); nothin' to see at them (wheeze).'

'There'll be the horse you drove yesterday; won't you go to see how he is?'

asked Mr. Sponge.

'Oh, sure to be well (puff); never nothing the matter with him (wheeze),'

replied Jogglebury.

'May as well see,' rejoined Mr. Sponge, turning up a narrow walk that seemed to lead to the back.

Jog followed doggedly. He had a good deal of John Bull in him, and did not fancy being taken possession of in that sort of way; and thought, moreover, that Mr. Sponge had not behaved very well in the matter of the egg controversy.

The stables certainly were nothing to boast of. They were in an old rubble-stone, red-tiled building, without even the delicacy of a ceiling.

Nevertheless, there was plenty of room even after Jogglebury had cut off one end for a cow-house.

'Why, you might hunt the country with all this stabling,' observed Mr.

Sponge, as he entered the low door. 'One, two, three, four, five, six, seven, eight, nine. Nine stalls, I declare,' added he, after counting them.

'My (puff) uncle used to (wheeze) a good deal of his own (puff) land,'

replied Jogglebury.

'Ah, well, I'll tell you what: these stables will be much better for being occupied,' observed Mr. Sponge. 'And I'll tell you what I'll do for you.'

'But they _are_ occupied!' gasped Jogglebury, convulsively.

'Only half,' replied Mr. Sponge; 'or a quarter, I may say--not even that, indeed. I'll tell you what I'll do. I'll have my horses over here, and you shall find them in straw in return for the manure, and just charge me for hay and corn at market price, you know. That'll make it all square and fair, and no obligation, you know. I hate obligations,' added he, eyeing Jog's disconcerted face.

'Oh, but (puff, wheeze, gasp)--' exclaimed Jogglebury, reddening up--'I don't (puff) know that I can (gasp) that. I mean (puff) that this (wheeze) stable is all the (gasp) 'commodation I have; and if we had (puff) company, or (gasp) anything of that sort, I don't know where we should (wheeze) their horses,' continued he. 'Besides, I don't (puff, wheeze) know about the market price of (gasp) corn. My (wheeze) tenant, Tom Hayrick, at the (puff) farm on the (wheeze) hill yonder, supplies me with the (puff) quant.i.ty I (wheeze) want, and we just (puff, wheeze, gasp) settle once a (puff) half-year, or so.'

'Ah, I see,' replied Mr. Sponge; 'you mean to say you wouldn't know how to strike the average so as to say what I ought to pay.'

'Just so,' rejoined Mr. Jogglebury, jumping at the idea.

'Ah, well,' said Mr. Sponge, in a tone of indifference; 'it's no great odds--it's no great odds--more the name of the thing than anything else; one likes to be independent, you know--one likes to be independent; but as I shan't be with you long, I'll just put up with it for once--I'll just put up with it for once--and let you find me--and let you find me.' So saying, he walked away, leaving Jogglebury petrified at his impudence.

'That husband of yours is a monstrous good fellow,' observed Mr. Sponge to Mrs. Jogglebury, who he now met coming out with her tail: 'he _will_ insist on my having my horses over here--most liberal, handsome thing of him, I'm sure; and that reminds me, can you manage to put up my servant?'

'I dare say we can,' replied Mrs. Jogglebury thoughtfully. 'He's not a very fine gentleman, is he?' asked she, knowing that servants were often more difficult to please than their masters. 'Oh, not at all,' replied Sponge; 'not at all--wouldn't suit me if he was--wouldn't suit me if he was.'

Just then up waddled Jogglebury, puffing and wheezing like a stranded grampus; the idea having just struck him that he might get off on the plea of not having room for the servant.

'It's very unfortunate (wheeze)--that's to say, it never occurred to me (puff), but I quite forgot (gasp) that we haven't (wheeze) room for your (puff) servant.'

'Ah, you are a good fellow,' replied Mr. Sponge--'a devilish good fellow. I was just telling Mrs. Jogglebury--wasn't I, Mrs. Jogglebury?--what an excellent fellow you are, and how kind you'd been about the horses and corn, and all that sort of thing, when it occurred to me that it mightn't be convenient, p'raps to put up a servant; but your wife a.s.sures me that it will; so that settles the matter, you know--that settles the matter and I'll now send for the horses forthwith.'

Jog was utterly disconcerted, and didn't know which way to turn for an excuse. Mrs. Jogglebury, though she would rather have been without the establishment, did not like to peril Gustavus James's prospects by appearing displeased; so she smilingly said she would see and do what they could.

Mr. Sponge then procured a messenger to take a note to Hanby House, for Mr.

Leather, and having written it, amused himself for a time with his cigars and his _Mogg_ in his bedroom, and then turned out to see the stable got ready, and pick up any information about the hounds, or anything else, from anybody he could lay hold of. As luck would have it, he fell in with a groom travelling a horse to hunt with Sir Harry Scattercash's hounds, which, he said, met at Sn.o.bston Green, some eight or nine miles off, the next day, and whither Mr. Sponge decided on going.

Mr. Jogglebury's equanimity returning at dinner time, Mr. Sponge was persuasive enough to induce him to accompany him, and it was finally arranged that Leather should go on with the horses, and Jog should drive Sponge to cover in the phe-_a_-ton.