smaller ones pretend to have, from whence, in due course, they can draw any
sort of an animal a customer may want, just as little cellarless
wine-merchants can get you any sort of wine from real establishments--if
you only give them time.

There was a good deal of mystery about Scampley. It was sometimes in the
hands of Mr. Benjamin Buckram, sometimes in the hands of his assignees,
sometimes in those of his cousin, Abraham Brown, and sometimes John Doe and
Richard Roe were the occupants of it.

Mr. Benjamin Buckram, though very far from being one, had the advantage of
looking like a respectable man. There was a certain plump, well-fed
rosiness about him, which, aided by a bright-coloured dress, joined to a
continual fumble in the pockets of his drab trousers, gave him the air of a
'well-to-do-in-the-world' sort of man. Moreover, he sported a velvet collar
to his blue coat, a more imposing ornament than it appears at first sight.
To be sure, there are two sorts of velvet collars--the legitimate velvet
collar, commencing with the coat, and the adopted velvet collar, put on
when the cloth one gets shabby.

Buckram's was always the legitimate velvet collar, new from the first, and,
we really believe, a permanent velvet collar, adhered to in storm and in
sunshine, has a very money-making impression on the world. It shows a
spirit superior to feelings of paltry economy, and we think a person would
be much more excusable for being victimized by a man with a good velvet
collar to his coat, than by one exhibiting that spurious sign of
gentility--a horse and gig.

The reader will now have the kindness to consider Mr. Sponge arriving at
Scampley.