all the cavalry in the Park in review, he would wend his way back to the
Bantam, much in the style he had come. This was his summer proceeding.

Mr. Sponge had pursued this enterprising life for some 'seasons'--ten at
least--and supposing him to have begun at twenty or one-and-twenty, he
would be about thirty at the time we have the pleasure of introducing him
to our readers--a period of life at which men begin to suspect they were
not quite so wise at twenty as they thought. Not that Mr. Sponge had any
particular indiscretions to reflect upon, for he was tolerably sharp, but
he felt that he might have made better use of his time, which may be
shortly described as having been spent in hunting all the winter, and in
talking about it all the summer. With this popular sport he combined the
diversion of fortune-hunting, though we are concerned to say that his
success, up to the period of our introduction, had not been commensurate
with his deserts. Let us, however, hope that brighter days are about to
dawn upon him.

Having now introduced our hero to our male and female friends, under his
interesting pursuits of fox and fortune-hunter, it becomes us to say a few
words as to his qualifications for carrying them on.

Mr. Sponge was a good-looking, rather vulgar-looking man. At a
distance--say ten yards--his height, figure, and carriage gave him somewhat
of a commanding appearance, but this was rather marred by a jerky, twitchy,
uneasy sort of air, that too plainly showed he was not the natural, or what
the lower orders call the _real_ gentleman. Not that Sponge was shy. Far
from it. He never hesitated about offering to a lady after a three days'
acquaintance, or in asking a gentleman to take him a horse in over-night,
with whom he might chance to come in contact in the hunting-field. And he
did it all in such a cool, off-hand, matter-of-course sort of way, that