s going and going until it declines
into a thing with no sort of resemblance to its original self. Barring its
weight and hardness, the Sponge hat had no particular character apart from
the Sponge head. It was not one of those punty ovals or Cheshire-cheese
flats, or curly-sided things that enables one to say who is in a house and
who is not, by a glance at the hats in the entrance, but it was just a
quiet, round hat, without anything remarkable, either in the binding, the
lining, or the band, but still it was a very becoming hat when Sponge had
it on. There is a great deal of character in hats. We have seen hats that
bring the owners to the recollection far more forcibly than the generality
of portraits. But to our hero.

That there may be a dandified simplicity in dress, is exemplified every day
by our friends the Quakers, who adorn their beautiful brown Saxony coats
with little inside velvet collars and fancy silk buttons, and even the
severe order of sporting costume adopted by our friend Mr. Sponge is not
devoid of capability in the way of tasteful adaptation. This Mr. Sponge
chiefly showed in promoting a resemblance between his neck-cloths and
waistcoats. Thus, if he wore a cream-coloured cravat, he would have a
buff-coloured waistcoat, if a striped waistcoat, then the starcher would be
imbued with somewhat of the same colour and pattern. The ties of these
varied with their texture. The silk ones terminated in a sort of coaching
fold, and were secured by a golden fox-head pin, while the striped
starchers, with the aid of a pin on each side, just made a neat,
unpretending tie in the middle, a sort of miniature of the flagrant,
flyaway, Mile-End ones of aspiring youth of the present day. His coats were
of the single-breasted cut-away order, with pockets outside, and generally
either Oxford mixture or some dark colour, that required you to place him
in a favourable light to say what it was.

His waistcoats, of course, were of the most correct form and material,
generally either pale buff, or buff with a narrow stripe, similar to the
undress vests of the servants of the Royal Family, only with the pattern
run across instead of lengthways, as those worthies mostly have theirs, and
made with good honest step collars, instead of the make-believe roll
collars they sometimes convert their upright ones into. When in deep
thought, calculating, perhaps, the value of a passing horse, or considering
whether he should have beefs