'Oh! (puff--wheeze--gasp) haven't you heard?' exclaimed Mr. Jogglebury,
taking off his great woolly hat, and giving his lank, dark hair, streaked
with grey, a sweep round his low forehead with the bandana. 'Oh!
(puff--gasp) haven't you heard?' repeated he, getting a little more
breath. 'I'm (wheeze) undertaking a series of (gasp) sticks,
representing--(gasp)--immortalizing, I may say (puff), all the (wheeze)
crowned heads of England (puff).'

'Indeed!' replied Mr. Sponge.

'They'll be a most valuable collection (wheeze--puff),' continued Mr.
Jogglebury, still eyeing the knob. 'This,' added he, 'shall be William the
Fourth.' He then commenced lopping and docking the sides, making
Bartholomew Badger bury them in a sand-pit hard by, observing, in a
confidential wheeze to Mr. Sponge, 'that he had once been county-courted
for a similar trespass before.' The top and lop being at length disposed
of, Mr. Crowdey, grasping the club-end, struck the other forcibly against
the ground, exclaiming, 'There!--there's a (puff) stick! Who knows what
that (puff--wheeze) stick may be worth some day?'

He then bundled into his carriage and drove on.

Two more stoppages marked their arrival at the other sticks, which being
duly captured and fastened within the straps of the carriage-apron, Mr.
Crowdey drove on somewhat more at ease in his mind, at all events somewhat
comforted at the thoughts of having increased his wealth. He did not become
talkative--indeed that was not his forte, but he puffed into his
shirt-frill, and made a few observations, which, if they did not possess
much originality, at all events showed that he was not asleep.

'Those are draining-tiles,' said he, after a hearty stare at a cart-load.
Then about five minutes after he blew again, and said, 'I don't think
(puff) that (wheeze) draining without (gasp) manuring will constitute high
farming (puff).'

So he jolted and wheezed, and jerked and jagged the old quadruped's mouth,
occasionally hissing between his teeth, and stamping against the bottom of
the carriage, when other persuasive efforts failed to induce it to keep up
the semblance of a trot. At last the ill-supported hobble died out into a
walk, and Mr. Crowdey, complacently dropping his fat hand on his fat knees,
seemed to resign himself to his fate.

So they crawled along the up-and-downy piece of road below Poplarton
plantations, Mr. Jogglebury keeping a sharp eye upon the underwood for
sticks. After pass