His lordship did not eat his porridge with his usual appetite,
for he had had a disturbed night, Sponge having appeared to him in his
dreams in all sorts of forms and predicaments; now jumping a-top of
him--now upsetting Jack--now riding over Frostyface--now crashing among his
hounds; and he awoke, fully determined to get rid of him by fair means or
foul. Buying his horses did not seem so good a speculation as blowing his
credit at Jawleyford Court, for, independently of disliking to part with
his cash, his lordship remembered that there were other horses to get, and
he should only be giving Sponge the means of purchasing them. The more,
however, he thought of the Jawleyford project, the more satisfied he was
that it would do; and Jack and he were in a sort of rehearsal, wherein his
lordship personated Jawleyford, and was showing Jack (who was only a clumsy
diplomatist) how to draw up to the subject of Sponge's pecuniary
deficiencies, when the dirty old butler came with Jawleyford's note.
'What's here?' exclaimed his lordship, fearing from its smartness, that it
was from a lady.
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