'Tom Washball!' exclaimed a third.
'Heads more foxes than any man in the country,' puffed a fourth.
'Always nicking and skirting,' exclaimed a fifth.
'Never comes to the meet,' added a sixth.
'Come on a cow to-day,' observed another.
'Always chopping and changing,' added another; 'he'll come on a giraffe
next.'
Having commenced his career with the 'F.H.H.' so inauspiciously and yet
escaped detection, Mr. Sponge thought of letting Tom Washball enjoy the
honours of his _faux-pas_, and of sneaking quietly home as soon as the
hounds hit off the scent; but unluckily, just as they were crossing the
lane, what should heave in sight, cantering along at his leisure, but the
redoubtable Multum in Parvo, who, having got rid of old Leather by bumping
and thumping his leg against a gate-post, was enjoying a line of his own.
'Whoay!' cried Sponge, as he saw the horse quickening his pace to have a
shy at the hounds as they crossed. 'Who--o--a--y!' roared he, brandishing
his whip, and trying to turn the piebald round; but no, the brute wouldn't
answer the bit, and dreading lest, in addition to heading the fox, he
should kill 'the best hound in the pack,' Mr.
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