In the trouser line he adhered to the close-fitting costume of former days; and many were the trials, the easings, and the alterings, ere he got a pair exactly to his mind.  Many were the customers who turned away on seeing his manly figure filling the swing mirror in ‘Snip and Sneiders’,’ a monopoly that some tradesmen might object to, only Mr. Sponge’s trousers being admitted to be perfect ‘triumphs of the art,’ the more such a walking advertisement was seen in the shop the better.  Indeed, we believe it would have been worth Snip and Co.’s while to have let him have them for nothing.  They were easy without being tight, or rather they looked tight without being so; there wasn’t a bag, a wrinkle, or a crease that there shouldn’t be, and strong and storm-defying as they seemed, they were yet as soft and as supple as a lady’s glove.  They looked more as if his legs had been blown in them than as if such irreproachable garments were the work of man’s hands.  Many were the nudges, and many the ‘look at this chap’s trousers,’ that were given by ambitious men emulous of his appearance as he passed along, and many were the turnings round to examine their faultless fall upon his radiant boot.  The boots, perhaps, might come in for a little of the glory, for they were beautifully soft and cool-looking to the foot, easy without being loose, and he preserved the lustre of their polish, even up to the last moment of his walk.  There never was a better man for getting through dirt, either on foot or horseback, than our friend.

To the frequenters of the ‘corner,’ it were almost superfluous to mention that he is a constant attendant.  He has several volumes of ‘catalogues,’ with the prices the horses have brought set down in the margins, and has a rare knack at recognizing old friends, altered, disguised, or disfigured as they may be—­’I’ve seen that rip before,’ he will say, with a knowing shake of the head, as some woe-begone devil goes, best leg foremost, up to the hammer, or, ‘What! is that old beast back? why he’s here every day.’  No man can impose upon Soapy with a horse.  He can detect the rough-coated plausibilities of the straw-yard, equally with the metamorphosis of the clipper or singer.  His practised eye is not to be imposed upon either by the blandishments of the bang-tail, or the bereavements of the dock.  Tattersall will hail him from his rostrum with—­’Here’s a horse will suit you, Mr. Sponge! cheap, good, and handsome! come and buy him.’  But it is needless describing him here, for every out-of-place groom and dog-stealer’s man knows him by sight.

CHAPTER II

MR. BENJAMIN BUCKRAM