This he sealed with the great seal of Jawleyford Court—­a coat of arms containing innumerable quarterings and heraldic devices.  Having then refreshed his memory by looking through a bundle of bills, and selected the most threatening of the lawyers’ letters to answer the next day, he proceeded to keep up the delusion of sickness, by retiring to sleep in his dressing-room.  Our readers will now have the kindness to accompany us to Lord Scamperdale’s:  time, the morning after the foregoing.  ’Love me, love my dog,’ being a favourite saying of his lordship’s, he fed himself, his friends, and his hounds, on the same meal.  Jack and he were busy with two great basins full of porridge, which his lordship diluted with milk, while Jack stirred his up with hot dripping, when the put-off note arrived.  His lordship was still in a complete suit of the great backgammon-board-looking red-and-yellow Stunner tartan:  but as Jack was going from home, he had got himself into a pair of his lordship’s yellow-ochre leathers and new top-boots, while he wore the Stunner jacket and waistcoat to save his lordship’s Sunday green cutaway with metal buttons, and canary-coloured waistcoat.  His lordship did not eat his porridge with his usual appetite, for he had had a disturbed night, Sponge having appeared to him in his dreams in all sorts of forms and predicaments; now jumping a-top of him—­now upsetting Jack—­now riding over Frostyface—­now crashing among his hounds; and he awoke, fully determined to get rid of him by fair means or foul.  Buying his horses did not seem so good a speculation as blowing his credit at Jawleyford Court, for, independently of disliking to part with his cash, his lordship remembered that there were other horses to get, and he should only be giving Sponge the means of purchasing them.  The more, however, he thought of the Jawleyford project, the more satisfied he was that it would do; and Jack and he were in a sort of rehearsal, wherein his lordship personated Jawleyford, and was showing Jack (who was only a clumsy diplomatist) how to draw up to the subject of Sponge’s pecuniary deficiencies, when the dirty old butler came with Jawleyford’s note.

‘What’s here?’ exclaimed his lordship, fearing from its smartness, that it was from a lady.  ‘What’s here?’ repeated he, as he inspected the direction.  ‘Oh, it’s for you!’ exclaimed he, chucking it over to Jack, considerably relieved by the discovery.

‘Me!’ replied Jack.  ‘Who can be writing to me?’ said he, squinting his eyes inside out at the seal.  He opened it:  ‘Jawleyford Court,’ read he.  ’Who the deuce can be writing to me from Jawleyford Court when I’m going there?’

‘A put-off, for a guinea!’ exclaimed his lordship.

‘Hope so,’ muttered Jack.

‘Hope not,’ replied his lordship.

‘It is!’ exclaimed Jack, reading, ‘Dear Mr. Spraggon,’ and so on.

‘The humbug!’ muttered Lord Scamperdale, adding, ’I’ll be bound he’s got no more influenza than I have.’