‘Hanby House,’ replied Mr. Puffington; ’Hanby House—­anybody can tell you where Hanby House is.’

‘I’ll not forget,’ said Mr. Sponge, booking it in his mind, and eyeing his victim.

‘I’ll show you a fine pack of hounds,’ said Mr. Puffington; ’far finer animals than those of old Scamperdale’s—­steady, true hunting hounds, that won’t go a yard without a scent—­none of your jealous, flashy, frantic devils, that will tear over half a township without one, and are always looking out for “halloas” and assistance—­’

Mr. Puffington was interrupted in the comparison he was about to draw between his lordship’s hounds and his, by arriving at the Bolsover brick-fields, and seeing Jack and Blossomnose, horse in hand, running to and fro, while sundry countrymen blobbed about in the clay-hole they had so recently occupied.  Tom Washball, Mr. Wake, Mr. Fyle, Mr. Fossick, and several dark-coated horsemen and boys were congregated around.  Jack had lost his spectacles, and Blossomnose his whip, and the countrymen were diving for them.

‘Not hurt, I hope?’ said Mr. Puffington, in the most dandified tone of indifference, as he rode up to where Jack and Blossomnose were churning the water in their boots, stamping up and down, trying to get themselves warm.

‘Hurt be hanged!’ replied Jack, who had a frightful squint, that turned his eyes inside out when he was in a passion:  ‘hurt be hanged!’ said he; ’might have been drownded, for anything you’d have cared.’

‘I should have been sorry for that,’ replied Mr. Puffington, adding, ’the Flat Hat Hunt could ill afford to lose so useful and ornamental a member.’

‘I don’t know what the Flat Hat Hunt can afford to lose,’ spluttered Jack, who hadn’t got all the clay out of his mouth; ’but I know they can afford to do without the company of certain gentlemen who shall be nameless,’ said he, looking at Sponge and Puffington as he thought, but in reality showing nothing but the whites of his eyes.  ‘I told you so,’ said Puffington, jerking his head towards Jack, as Sponge and he turned their horses’ heads to ride away; ‘I told you so,’ repeated he; ’that’s a specimen of their style’; adding, ‘they are the greatest set of ruffians under the sun.’

The new acquaintances then jogged on together as far as the cross-roads at Stewley, when Puffington, having bound Sponge in his own recognizance to come to him when he left Jawleyford Court, pointed him out his way, and with a most hearty shake of the hands the new-made friends parted.

CHAPTER XXIV

LORD SCAMPERDALE AT HOME

[Illustration]

We fear our fair friends will expect something gay from the above heading—­lamps and flambeaux outside, fiddlers, feathers, and flirters in.  Nothing of the sort, fair ladies—­nothing of the sort.  Lord Scamperdale ’at home’ simply means that his lordship was not out hunting, that he had got his dirty boots and breeches off, and dry tweeds and tartans on.