ith this assurance Mr. Sponge resumed his seat at the table, where several
of the hungry ones were plying their knives and forks as if they were
indeed breaking their fasts.

'Well, old boy, and how are you?' asked Sponge, as the whites of Jack's
eyes again settled upon him, on the latter's looking up from his plateful
of sausages.

'Nicely. How are you?' asked Jack.

'Nicely too,' replied Sponge, in the laconic way men speak who have been
engaged in some common enterprise--getting drunk, pelting people with
rotten eggs, or anything of that sort.

'Jaw and the ladies well?' asked Jack, in the same strain.

'Oh, nicely,' said Sponge.

'Take a glass of cherry-brandy,' exclaimed the hospitable Mr. Springwheat:
'nothing like a drop of something for steadying the nerves.'

'Presently,' replied Sponge, 'presently; meanwhile I'll trouble the missis
for a cup of coffee. Coffee without sugar,' said Sponge, addressing the
lady.

'With pleasure,' replied Mrs. Springwheat, glad to get a little custom for
her goods. Most of the gentlemen had been at the bottles and sideboard.

Springwheat, seeing Mr. Sponge, the only person who, as a stranger, there
was any occasion for him to attend to, in the care of his wife, now slipped
out of the room, and mounting his five-year-old horse, whose tail stuck out
like the long horn of a coach, as his ploughman groom said, rode off to
join the hunt.

'By the powers, but those are capital sarsingers!' observed Jack, smacking
his lips and eating away for hard life. 'Just look if my lord's on his
horse yet,' added he to one of the children, who had begun to hover round
the table and dive their fingers into the sweets.

'No,' replied the child; 'he's still on foot, playing with the dogs.'

'Here goes, then,' said Jack, 'for another plate,' suiting the action to
the word, and running with his plate to the sausage-dish.

'Have a hot one,' exclaimed Mrs. Springwheat, adding, 'it will be done in a
minute.'

'No, thank ye,' replied Jack, with a shake of the head, adding, 'I might be
done in a minute too.'

'He'll wait for you, I suppose?' observed Sponge, addressing Jack.

'Not so clear about that,' replied Jack, gobbling away; 'time and my lord
wait for no man. But it's hardly the half-hour yet,' added he, looking at
his watch.

He then fell to with the voracity of a hound after hunting. Sponge, too,
made the most of his time, as did two or three others who still remained.

'Now for t