Looking around the scene there seems to be everybody that we have had the pleasure of introducing to the reader in the course of Mr. Sponge’s Tour.  Mr. and Mrs. Springwheat in their dog-cart, Mrs. Springey’s figure looking as though ‘wheat had got above forty, my lord’; old Jog and his handsome wife in the ugly old phaeton, well garnished with children, and a couple of sticks in the rough peeping out of the apron, Gustavus James held up in his mother’s arms, with the curly blue feather nodding over his nose.  There is also Farmer Peastraw, and faces that a patient inspection enables us to appropriate to Dribble, and Hook, and Capon, and Calcot, and Lumpleg, and Crane of Crane Hall, and Charley Slapp of red-coat times—­people look so different in plain clothes to what they do in hunting ones.  Here, too, is George Cheek, running down with perspiration, having run over from Dr. Latherington’s, for which he will most likely ‘catch it’ when he gets back; and oh, wonder of wonders, here’s Robert Foozle himself!

‘Well, Robert, you’ve come to the steeple-chase?’

‘Yes, I’ve come to the steeple-chase.’

‘Are you fond of steeple-chases?’

‘Yes, I’m fond of steeple-chases.’

‘I dare say you never were at one before,’ observes his mother.

‘No, I never was at one before,’ replies Robert.

And though last not least, here’s Facey Romford, with his arm in a sling, on Mr. Hobler, come to look after that sivin-p’und-ten, which we wish he may get.

Hark! there’s a row below the stand, and Viney is seen in a state of excitement inquiring for Mr. Washball.  Pacey has objected to a gentleman rider, and Guano and Puffington have differed on the point.  A nice, slim, well-put-on lad (Buckram’s rough rider) has come to the scales and claimed to be allowed 3 lb. as the Honourable Captain Boville.  Finding the point questioned, he abandons the ‘handle’, and sinks into plain Captain Boville.  Pacey now objects to him altogether.  ’S-c-e-u-s-e me, sir; s-c-e-u-s-e me, sir,’ simpers our friend Dick Bragg, sidling up to the objector with a sort of tendency of his turn-back-wristed hand to his hat.  ’S-c-e-u-s-e me, sir; s-c-e-u-s-e me,’ repeats he, ’but I think you was wrong, sir, in objecting to Captain Boville, sir, as a gen’l’man rider, sir.’

‘Why?’ demands Pacey, in the full flush of victory.

‘Oh, sir—­because, sir—­in fact, sir—­he is a gen’l’man, sir.’

‘Is a gentleman!  How do you know?’ demands Pacey, in the same tone as before.

’Oh, sir, he’s a gen’l’man—­an undoubted gen’l’man.  Everything about him shows that.  Does nothing—­breeches by Anderson—­boots by Bartley; besides which, he drinks wine every day, and has a whole box of cigars in his bedroom.  But don’t take my word for it, pray,’ continued Bragg, seeing Pacey was wavering; ’don’t take my word for it, pray.  There’s a gen’l’man, a countryman of his, somewhere about,’ added he, looking anxiously into the surrounding crowd—­there’s a gen’l’man, a countryman of his, somewhere about, if we could but find him,’ Bragg standing on his tiptoes, and exclaiming, ’Mr. Buckram!  Mr. Buckram!  Has anybody seen anything of Mr. Buckram!’