He'd take the high hand, and give Jog up.
'I'm your man!' said Sponge, in high glee.
'When will you come?' asked Romford.
'To-morrow!' replied Sponge firmly.
'So be it,' rejoined his proffered host; and, with another hearty swing of
the arm, the newly made friends parted.
Charley Romford, or Facey, as he was commonly called, from his being the
admitted most impudent man in the country, was a great, round-faced,
coarse-featured, prize-fighting sort of fellow, who lived chiefly by his
wits, which he exercised in all the legitimate lines of industry--poaching,
betting, boxing, horse-dealing, cards, quoits--anything that came
uppermost. That he was a man of enterprise, we need hardly add, when he had
formed a scheme for doing our Sponge--a man that we do not think any of our
readers would trouble themselves to try a 'plant' upon.
This impudent Facey, as if in contradiction of terms, was originally
intended for a civil engineer; but having early in life voted himself heir
to his uncle, Mr. Gilroy, of Queercove Hill, a great cattle-jobber, with a
'small independence of his own'--three hundred a year, perhaps, which a
kind world called six--Facey thought he would just hang about until his
uncle was done with his shoes, and then be lord of Queercove Hill.
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