He was very soon quite at home with the whole of them, and ready to tell
anything he knew of the great families in which he had lived. Of course, he
abused the duke's place, and said he had been obliged to give him 'hup' at
last, 'bein' quite an unpossible man to live with; indeed, his only wonder
was, that he had been able to put hup with him so long.' The duchess was a
'good cretur,' he said, and, indeed, it was mainly on her account that he
stayed, but as to the duke, he was--everything that was bad, in short.
Mr. Sponge, on the other hand, had no reason to complain of the colours in
which his stud-groom painted him. Instead of being the shirtless strapper
of a couple of vicious hack hunters. Leather made himself out to be the
general superintendent of the opulent owner of a large stud. The exact
number varied with the number of glasses of grog Leather had taken, but he
never had less than a dozen, and sometimes as many as twenty hunters under
his care. These, he said, were planted all over the kingdom; some at
Melton, to ''unt with the Quorn'; some at Northampton, to ''unt with the
Pytchley'; some at Lincoln, to ''unt with Lord 'Enry'; and some at Louth,
to ''unt with'--he didn't know who.
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