'I suppose Mr. Waffles is your man?' observed Mr. Sponge, rightly judging that there couldn't be two such flats in the place. 'Just so,' said Mr. Thornton. [Illustration: MR. WAFFLES AT MISS LOLLYPOP'S] 'I'd rather take his "stiff" than his cheque,' observed Mr. Sponge, after a pause. 'I could get a bit of stiff _done_, but a cheque, you see--especially a post-dated one--is always objected to.' 'Well, I dare say that will make no difference,' observed Mr. Thornton, '"stiff," if you prefer it--say three months; or perhaps you'll give us four?' 'Three's long enough, in all conscience,' replied Mr. Sponge, with a shake of the head, adding, 'Bullfrog made me pay down on the nail.' 'Well, so be it, then,' assented Mr. Thornton; 'you draw at three months, and Mr. Waffles will accept, payable at Coutts's.' After so much liberality, Mr. Caingey expected that Mr. Sponge would have hinted at something handsome for him; but all Sponge said was, 'So be it,' too, as he walked away to buy a bill-stamp. Mr. Waffles was more considerate, and promised him the first mount on his new purchase, though Caingey would rather have had a ten, or even a five-pound note. Towards the hour of ten on that eventful day, numerous gaitered, trousered, and jacketed grooms began to ride up and down the High Street, most of them with their stirrups crossed negligently on the pommels of the saddles, to indicate that their masters were going to ride the horses, and not them. The street grew lively, not so much with people going to hunt, as with people coming to see those who were. Tattered Hibernians, with rags on their backs and jokes on their lips; young English _chevaliers d'industrie_, with their hands ready to dive into anybody's pockets but their own; stablemen out of place, servants loitering on their errands, striplings helping them, ladies'-maids with novels or three-corner'd notes, and a good crop of beggars. 'What, Spareneck, do you ride the grey to-day? I thought you'd done Gooseman out of a mount,' observed Ensign Downley, as a line of scarlet-coated youths hung over the balcony of the Imperial Hotel, after breakfast and before mounting for the day. Spareneck.--'No, that's for Tuesday. He wouldn't stand one to-day. What do you ride?' Downley.--'Oh, I've a hack, one of Screwman's, Perpetual Motion they call him, because he never gets any rest. That's him, I believe, with the lofty-actioned hind-legs,' added he, pointing to a weedy string-halty bay passing below, high in bone and low in flesh. 'Who's o' the gaudy chestnut?' asked Caingey Thornton, who now appeared, wiping his fat lips after his second glass of _eau de vie_. 'That's Mr. Sponge's,' replied Spareneck in a low tone, knowing how soon a man catches his own name. 'A deuced fine horse he is, too,' observed Caingey, in a louder key; adding, 'Sponge has the finest lot of horses of any man in England--in the world, I may say.'