A stranger being a marked man in a rural country, Mr. Sponge excited more curiosity in Mr. Jogglebury Crowdey’s mind than Mr. Jogglebury Crowdey did in Mr. Sponge’s.  In truth, Jogglebury was one of those unsportsmanlike beings, that a regular fox-hunter would think it waste of words to inquire about, and if Mr. Sponge saw him, he did not recollect him; while, on the other hand, Mr. Jogglebury Crowdey went home very full of our friend.  Now, Mrs. Jogglebury Crowdey was a fine, bustling, managing woman, with a large family, for whom she exerted all her energies to procure desirable god-papas and mammas; and, no sooner did she hear of this newcomer, than she longed to appropriate him for god-papa to their youngest son.

‘Jog, my dear,’ said she, to her spouse, as they sat at tea; ’it would be well to look after him.’

‘What for, my dear?’ asked Jog, who was staring a stick, with a half-finished head of Lord Brougham for a handle, out of countenance.

‘What for, Jog?  Why, can’t you guess?’

‘No,’ replied Jog doggedly.

‘No!’ ejaculated his spouse.  ’Why, Jog, you certainly are the stupidest man in existence.’

‘Not necessarily!’ replied Jog, with a jerk of his head and a puff into his shirt-frill that set it all in a flutter.

‘Not necessarily!’ replied Mrs. Jogglebury, who was what they call a ‘spirited woman,’ in the same rising tone as before.  ’Not necessarily! but I say necessarily—­yes, necessarily.  Do you hear me, Mr. Jogglebury?’

‘I hear you,’ replied Jogglebury scornfully, with another jerk, and another puff into the frill.

The two then sat silent for some minutes, Jogglebury still contemplating the progressing head of Lord Brougham, and recalling the eye and features that some five-and-twenty years before had nearly withered him in a breach of promise action, ’Smiler v.  Jogglebury,’[3] that being our friend’s name before his uncle Crowdey left him his property.

[Illustration]

Mrs. Jogglebury having an object in view, and knowing that, though Jogglebury might lead, he would not drive, availed herself of the lull to trim her sail, to try and catch him on the other tack.

‘Well, Mr. Jogglebury Crowdey,’ said she, in a passive tone of regret, ’I certainly thought however indifferent you might be to me’ (and here she applied her handkerchief—­rather a coarse one—­to her eyes) ’that still you had some regard for the interests of your (sob) children’; and here the waterfalls of her beady black eyes went off in a gush.

‘Well, my dear,’ replied Jogglebury, softened, ’I’m (puff) sure I’m (wheeze) anxious for my (puff) children.  You don’t s’pose if I wasn’t (puff), I’d (wheeze) labour as I (puff—­wheeze) do to leave them fortins?’—­alluding to his exertions in the gibbey-stick line.

‘Oh, Jog, I dare say you’re very good and very industrious,’ sobbed Mrs. Jogglebury, ’but I sometimes (sob) think that you might apply your (sob) energies to a better (sob) purpose.’