say, past mark of mouth horses; but on the present occasion, Mr. Sponge
sought his services in the capacity of a letter rather than a seller of
horses. Mr. Sponge wanted to job a couple of plausible-looking horses, with
the option of buying them, provided he (Mr. Sponge) could sell them for
more than he would have to give Mr. Buckram, exclusive of the hire. Mr.
Buckram's job price, we should say, was as near twelve pounds a month,
containing twenty-eight days, as he could screw, the hirer, of course,
keeping the animals.

Scampley is one of those pretty little suburban farms, peculiar to the
north and north-west side of London--farms varying from fifty to a hundred
acres of well-manured, gravelly soil; each farm with its picturesque little
buildings, consisting of small, honey-suckled, rose-entwined brick houses,
with small, flat, pan-tiled roofs, and lattice-windows; and, hard by, a
large hay-stack, three times the size of the house, or a desolate barn,
half as big as all the rest of the buildings. From the smallness of the
holdings, the farmhouses are dotted about as thickly, and at such varying
distances from the roads, as to look like inferior 'villas,' falling out of
rank; most of them have a half-smart, half-seedy sort of look.

The rustics who cultivate them, or rather look after them, are neither
exactly town nor country. They have the clownish dress and boorish gait of
the regular 'chaws,' with a good deal of the quick, suspicious, sour
sauciness of the low London resident. If you can get an answer from them at
all, it is generally delivered in such a way as to show that the answerer
thinks you are what they call 'chaffing them,' asking them what you know.

These farms serve the double purpose of purveyors to the London stables,
and hospitals for sick, overworked, or unsaleable horses. All the great
job-masters and horse-dealers have these retreats in the country, and the