During his stay at Jawleyford Court, Mr. Sponge's time was passed in hunting, smoking all over the house--a habit the owner detested--and in making love to Miss Amelia; taking care, however, not to commit himself until he had discovered from papa what the settlements were to be. We who are behind the scenes know that Jawleyford Court is "mortgaged up to the chimney-pots," and that Mr. J. is over head and ears in debt besides. We know also that Mr. Sponge is impecunious, his hunters are hired; he is, in fact, as his author describes him, "a vulgar humbug." "Jawleyford began to suspect that Sponge might not be the great 'catch' he was represented," says the author. No doubt in finding himself baffled in his attempts to sound his host upon the subject of settlements, Mr. Sponge also "began to suspect" that neither of the Misses Jawleyford would be the "catch" that he wanted. Still, he held on to his quarters in defiance of the attempts to get rid of him. He was removed from the best bedroom to one in which it was impossible to light a fire, or, rather, to endure it when it was alight, because of an incurable smoky chimney. He was given poor food and corked wine, still he stayed, until he had provided himself with a temporary home at the house of a hunting gentleman named Puffington. Mr. Puffington, who made Sponge's acquaintance at the covert-side where Lord Scamperdale's hounds met, "got it into his head" that Mr. Sponge was a literary man, whose brilliant pen was about to be employed in the interest of fox-hunting in general, and of certain runs of Mr. Puffington's hounds in particular. Mr. Puffington "was the son of a great starch-maker at Stepney." Puffington, senior, made a large fortune, which enabled his son to become the owner of Hanby House, and of the "Mangeysterne--now Hanby-Hounds," because he thought they would give him consequence. Our author says, Mr. Puffington "had no natural inclination for hunting," but he seems to have become M.F.H. so that he might entertain some of the sporting friends he had made at college, such "dashing young sparks as Lord Firebrand, Lord Mudlark, Lord Deuceace, Sir Harry Blueun, Lord Legbail, now Earl of Loosefish," and so on. My space, or, rather, the want of it, prevents my telling how it was that Mr. Sponge "awoke and found himself famous" as an author. In conjunction with a friend, who steered him through the spelling and grammar, he concocted an article for the _Swillingford Patriot_--Grimes, editor--which "appeared in the middle of the third sheet, and was headed, 'Splendid Run with Mr. Puffington's Hounds.'" Mr. Grimes was ably assisted in his editorial duties by "his eldest daughter, Lucy--a young lady of a certain age, say liberal thirty--an ardent Bloomer, with a considerable taste for sentimental poetry, with which she generally filled the Poet's Corner."