[Mr. Sponge’s Sporting Tour by R. S. Surtees]@TWC D-Link book
Mr. Sponge’s Sporting Tour

CHAPTER XXV
13/27

Amelia, on the other hand, seemed desirous of making up for her suitor's rudeness, and kept talking to Jack with an assiduity that perfectly astonished her sister, who had always heard her speak of him with the utmost abhorrence.
Mrs.Jawleyford found her husband in a desperate state of excitement, his influenza being greatly aggravated by Harry having returned very drunk, with the mare's knees desperately broken 'by a fall,' as Harry hiccuped out, or by his 'throwing her down,' as Jawleyford declared.

Horses _fall_ with their masters, servants _throw_ them down.

What a happiness it is when people can send their servants on errands by coaches or railways, instead of being kept on the fidget all day, lest a fifty-pound horse should be the price of a bodkin or a basket of fish! Amelia's condescension quite turned Jack's head; and when he went upstairs to dress, he squinted at his lordship's best clothes, all neatly laid out for him on the bed, with inward satisfaction at having brought them.
'Dash me!' said he, 'I really think that girl has a fancy for me.' Then he examined himself minutely in the glass, brushed his whiskers up into a curve on his cheeks, the curves almost corresponding with the curve of his spectacles above; then he gave his bristly, porcupine-shaped head a backward rub with a sort of thing like a scrubbing-brush.

'If I'd only had the silver specs,' thought he, 'I should have done.' He then began to dress; an operation that, ever and anon was interrupted by the outburst of volleys of smoke from the little spluttering, smouldering fire in the little shabby room Jawleyford insisted on having him put into.
Jack tried all things--opening the window and shutting the door, shutting the window and opening the door; but finding that, instead of curing it, he only produced the different degrees of comparison--bad, worse, worst--he at length shut both, and applied himself vigorously to dressing.

He soon got into his stockings and pumps, also his black Saxony trousers; then came a fine black laced fringe cravat, and the damson-coloured velvet waistcoat with the cut-steel buttons.
'Dash me, but I look pretty well in this!' said he, eyeing first one side and then the other as he buttoned it.


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