This pleased Mrs. Crowdey--looking, as she
thought, as if he had come predetermined to do what she wanted. Amidst
praises and stories of the prodigy, they reached the house.
If a 'hall' means a house with an entrance-'hall,' Puddingpote Bower did
not aspire to be one. A visitor dived, _in medias res_, into the passage at
once. In it stood an oak-cased family clock, and a large glass-case, with
an alarming-looking, stuffed tiger-like cat, on an imitation marble slab.
Underneath the slab, indeed all about the passage, were scattered
children's hats and caps, hoops, tops, spades, and mutilated toys--spotted
horses without heads, soldiers without arms, windmills without sails, and
wheelbarrows without wheels. In a corner were a bunch of 'gibbeys' in the
rough, and alongside the weather-glass hung Jog's formidable flail of a
hunting-whip.
Mr. Sponge found his portmanteau standing bolt upright in the passage, with
the bag alongside of it, just as they had been chucked out of the phaeton
by Bartholomew Badger, who, having got orders to put the horse right, and
then to put himself right to wait at dinner, Mr.
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