Mr. Sponges Sporting Tour

Mr. Sponge's Sporting Tour

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Title: Mr. Sponge's Sporting Tour
Author: R. S. Surtees
Release Date: October 28, 2005 [EBook #16957]
Language: English
Character set encoding: ISO-8859-1
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SPONGE'S SPORTING TOUR ***

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Mr. Sponge's Sporting Tour.
R.S. Surtees
[Illustration: _Mr. Sponge completely scatters his Lordship_]

Transcriber's Note: Minor typos corrected and footnotes moved to end
of text.
TO
THE RIGHT HONOURABLE LORD ELCHO,
IN GRATITUDE
FOR MANY SEASONS OF EXCELLENT SPORT WITH HIS
HOUNDS,
ON THE BORDER.
THIS VOLUME IS INSCRIBED,
BY HIS
OBLIGED AND FAITHFUL SERVANT,
THE AUTHOR.

PREFACE
The author gladly avails himself of the convenience of a Preface for
stating, that it will be seen at the close of the work why he makes such
a characterless character as Mr. Sponge the hero of his tale.
He will be glad if it serves to put the rising generation on their guard
against specious, promiscuous acquaintance, and trains them on to the
noble sport of hunting, to the exclusion of its mercenary, illegitimate
off-shoots.
_November 1852_
CHAPTER I

OUR HERO
[Illustration]
It was a murky October day that the hero of our tale, Mr. Sponge, or
Soapey Sponge, as his good-natured friends call him, was seen
mizzling along Oxford Street, wending his way to the West. Not that
there was anything unusual in Sponge being seen in Oxford Street, for
when in town his daily perambulations consist of a circuit,
commencing from the Bantam Hotel in Bond Street into Piccadilly,
through Leicester Square, and so on to Aldridge's, in St. Martin's Lane,
thence by Moore's sporting-print shop, and on through some of those
ambiguous and tortuous streets that, appearing to lead all ways at once
and none in particular, land the explorer, sooner or later, on the south
side of Oxford Street.
Oxford Street acts to the north part of London what the Strand does to
the south: it is sure to bring one up, sooner or later. A man can hardly
get over either of them without knowing it. Well, Soapey having got
into Oxford Street, would make his way at a squarey, in-kneed,
duck-toed, sort of pace, regulated by the bonnets, the vehicles, and the
equestrians he met to criticize; for of women, vehicles, and horses, he
had voted himself a consummate judge. Indeed, he had fully
established in his own mind that Kiddey Downey and he were the only
men in London who really knew anything about, horses, and fully
impressed with that conviction, he would halt, and stand, and stare, in a
way that with any other man would have been considered impertinent.
Perhaps it was impertinent in Soapey--we don't mean to say it
wasn't--but he had done it so long, and was of so sporting a gait and cut,
that he felt himself somewhat privileged. Moreover, the majority of
horsemen are so satisfied with the animals they bestride, that they cock
up their jibs and ride along with a 'find any fault with either me or my
horse, if you can' sort of air.
Thus Mr. Sponge proceeded leisurely along, now nodding to this man,
now jerking his elbow to that, now smiling on a phaeton, now sneering
at a 'bus. If he did not look in at Shackell's or Bartley's, or any of the
dealers on the line, he was always to be found about half-past five at

Cumberland Gate, from whence he would strike leisurely down the
Park, and after coming to a long check at Rotten Row rails, from
whence he would pass all the cavalry in the Park in review, he would
wend his way back to the Bantam, much in the style he had come. This
was his summer proceeding.
Mr. Sponge had pursued this enterprising life for some 'seasons'--ten at
least--and supposing him to have begun at twenty or one-and-twenty,
he would be about thirty at the time we have the pleasure of
introducing him to our readers--a period of life at which men begin to
suspect they were not quite so wise at twenty as they thought. Not that
Mr. Sponge had any particular indiscretions to reflect upon, for he was
tolerably sharp, but he felt that he might have made better use of his
time, which may be shortly described as having been spent in hunting
all the winter, and in talking about it all the summer.