Mr. Sponge's Sporting Tour Part 17

'No,' repeated Sponge.

'Look again, my dear fellow; you _must_ know it,' observed Jawleyford.

'I suppose it's meant for you,' at last replied Sponge, seeing his host's anxiety.

'_Meant!_ my dear fellow; why, don't you think it like?'

'Why, there's a resemblance, certainly,' said Sponge, 'now that one knows.

But I shouldn't have guessed it was you.'

'Oh, my dear Mr. Sponge!' exclaimed Jawleyford, in a tone of mortification, 'Do you _really_ mean to say you don't think it like?'

'Why, yes, it's like,' replied Sponge, seeing which way his host wanted it; 'it's like, certainly; the want of expression in the eye makes such a difference between a bust and a picture.'

'True,' replied Jawleyford, comforted--'true,' repeated he, looking affectionately at it; 'I should say it was very like--like as anything can be. You are rather too much above it there, you see; sit down here,'

continued he, leading Sponge to an ottoman surrounding a huge model of the column in the Place Vendome, that stood in the middle of the room--'sit down here now, and look, and say if you don't think it like?'

[Ill.u.s.tration: 'THIS, OF COURSE, YOU KNOW?']

'Oh, _very_ like,' replied Sponge, as soon as he had seated himself. 'I see it now, directly; the mouth is yours to a T.'

'And the chin. It's my chin, isn't it?' asked Jawleyford.

'Yes; and the nose, and the forehead, and the whiskers, and the hair, and the shape of the head, and everything. Oh! I see it now as plain as a pikestaff,' observed Sponge.

'I thought you would,' rejoined Jawleyford comforted--'I thought you would; it's generally considered an excellent likeness--so it should, indeed, for it cost a vast of money--fifty guineas! to say nothing of the lotus-leafed pedestal it's on. That's another of me,' continued Jawleyford, pointing to a bust above the fireplace, on the opposite side of the gallery; 'done some years since--ten or twelve, at least--not so like as this, but still like.

That portrait up there, just above the "Finding of Moses," by Poussin,'

pointing to a portrait of himself att.i.tudinizing, with his hand on his hip, and frock-coat well thrown back, so as to show his figure and the silk lining to advantage, 'was done the other day, by a very rising young artist; though he has hardly done me justice, perhaps--particularly in the nose, which he's made far too thick and heavy; and the right hand, if anything, is rather clumsy; otherwise the colouring is good, and there is a considerable deal of taste in the arrangement of the background, and so on.'

'What book is it you are pointing to?' asked Sponge.

'It's not a book,' replied Mr. Jawleyford, 'it's a plan--a plan of this gallery, in fact. I am supposed to be giving the final order for the erection of the very edifice we are now in.'

'And a very handsome building it is,' observed Sponge, thinking he would make it a shooting-gallery when he got it.

'Yes, it's a handsome thing in its way,' a.s.sented Jawleyford; 'better if it had been water-tight, perhaps,' added he, as a big drop splashed upon the crown of his head.

'The contents must be very valuable,' observed Sponge.

'Very valuable,' replied Jawleyford. 'There's a thing I gave two hundred and fifty guineas for--that vase. It's of Parian marble, of the Cinque Cento period, beautifully sculptured in a dance of Baccha.n.a.ls, arabesques, and chimera figures; it was considered cheap. Those fine monkeys in Dresden china, playing on musical instruments, were forty; those bronzes of scaramouches on ormolu plinths were seventy; that ormolu clock, of the style of Louis Quinze, by Le Roy, was eighty; those Sevres vases were a hundred--mounted, you see, in ormolu, with lily candelabra for ten lights.

The handles,' continued he, drawing Sponge's attention to them, 'are very handsome--composed of satyrs holding festoons of grapes and flowers, which surround the neck of the vase; on the sides are pastoral subjects, painted in the highest style--nothing can be more beautiful or more chaste.'

'Nothing,' a.s.sented Sponge.

'The pictures I should think are most valuable,' observed Jawleyford. 'My friend Lord Sparklebury said to me the last time he was here--he's now in Italy, increasing his collection--"Jawleyford, old boy," said he, for we are very intimate--just like brothers, in fact; "Jawleyford, old boy, I wonder whether your collection or mine would fetch most money, if they were Christie-&-Manson'd." "Oh, your lords.h.i.+p," said I, "your Guidos, and Ostades, and Poussins, and Velasquez, are not to be surpa.s.sed." "True,"

replied his lords.h.i.+p, "they are fine--very fine; but you have the Murillos.

I'd like to give you a good round sum," added he, "to pick out half-a-dozen pictures out of your gallery." Do you understand pictures?' continued Jawleyford, turning short on his friend Sponge.

'A little,' replied Sponge, in a tone that might mean either yes or no--a great deal or nothing at all.

Jawleyford then took him and worked him through his collection--talked of light and shade, and tone, and depth of colouring, tints, and pencillings; and put Sponge here and there and everywhere to catch the light (or rain, as the case might be); made him convert his hand into an opera-gla.s.s, and occasionally put his head between his legs to get an upside-down view--a feat that Sponge's equestrian experience made him pretty well up to. So they looked, and admired, and criticized, till Spigot's all-important figure came looming up the gallery and announced that luncheon was ready.

'Bless me!' exclaimed Jawleyford, pulling a most diminutive Geneva watch, hung with pencils, pistol-keys, and other curiosities, out of his pocket; 'Bless me, who'd have thought it? One o'clock, I declare! Well, if this doesn't prove the value of a gallery on a wet day. I don't know what does.

However,' said he, 'we must tear ourselves away for the present, and go and see what the ladies are about.'

If ever a man may be excused for indulging in luncheon, it certainly is on a pouring wet day (when he eats for occupation), or when he is making love; both which excuses Mr. Sponge had to offer, so he just sat down and ate as heartily as the best of the party, not excepting his host himself, who was an excellent hand at luncheon.

Jawleyford tried to get him back to the gallery after luncheon, but a look from his wife intimated that Sponge was wanted elsewhere, so he quietly saw him carried off to the music-room; and presently the notes of the 'grand piano,' and full clear voices of his daughters, echoing along the pa.s.sage, intimated that they were trying what effect music would have upon him.

When Mrs. Jawleyford looked in about an hour after, she found Mr. Sponge sitting over the fire with his _Mogg_ in his hand, and the young ladies with their laps full of company-work, keeping up a sort of crossfire of conversation in the shape of question and answer. Mrs. Jawleyford's company making matters worse, they soon became tediously agreeable.

In course of time, Jawleyford entered the room, with:

'My dear Mr. Sponge, your groom has come up to know about your horse to-morrow. I told him it was utterly impossible to think of hunting, but he says he must have his orders from you. I should say,' added Jawleyford, 'it is _quite_ out of the question--madness to think of it; much better in the house, such weather.'

'I don't know that,' replied Sponge, 'the rain's come down, and though the country will ride heavy, I don't see why we shouldn't have sport after it.'

'But the gla.s.s is falling, and the wind's gone round the wrong way; the moon changed this morning--everything, in short, indicates continued wet,'

replied Jawleyford. 'The rivers are all swollen, and the low grounds under water; besides, my dear fellow, consider the distance--consider the distance; sixteen miles, if it's a yard.'

'What, Dundleton Tower!' exclaimed Sponge, recollecting that Jawleyford had said it was only ten the night before.

'Sixteen miles, and bad road,' replied Jawleyford.

'The deuce it is!' muttered Sponge; adding, 'Well, I'll go and see my groom, at all events.' So saying, he rang the bell as if the house was his own, and desired Spigot to show him the way to his servant.

Leather, of course, was in the servants' hall, refres.h.i.+ng himself with cold meat and ale, after his ride up from Lucksford.

Finding that he had ridden the hack up, he desired Leather to leave him there. 'Tell the groom I _must_ have him put up,' said Sponge; 'and you ride the chestnut on in the morning. How far is it to Dundleton Tower?'

asked he.

'Twelve or thirteen miles, they say, from here,' replied Leather; 'nine or ten from Lucksford.'

'Well, that'll do,' said Sponge; 'you tell the groom here to have the hack saddled for me at nine o'clock, and you ride Multum in Parvo quietly on, either to the meet or till I overtake you.'

'But how am I to get back to Lucksford?' asked Leather, c.o.c.king up a foot to show how thinly he was shod.

'Oh, just as you can,' replied Sponge; 'get the groom here to set you down with his master's hacks. I dare say they haven't been out to-day, and it'll do them good.'

So saying, Mr. Sponge left his valuable servant to do the best he could for himself.

Having returned to the music-room, with the aid of an old county map Mr.

Sponge proceeded to trace his way to Dundleton Tower; aided, or rather r.e.t.a.r.ded, by Mr. Jawleyford, who kept pointing out all sorts of difficulties, till, if Mr. Sponge had followed his advice, he would have made eighteen or twenty miles of the distance. Sponge, however, being used to scramble about strange countries, saw the place was to be accomplished in ten or eleven. Jawleyford was sure he would lose himself, and Sponge was equally confident that he wouldn't.

At length the glad sound of the gong put an end to all further argument; and the inmates of Jawleyford Court retired, candle in hand, to their respective apartments, to adorn for a repet.i.tion of the yesterday's spread, with the addition of the Rev. Mr. Hoban.o.b's company, to say grace, and praise the 'Wintle.'

An appet.i.teless dinner was succeeded by tea and music, as before.

The three elegant French clocks in the drawing-room being at variance, one being three-quarters of an hour before the slowest, and twenty minutes before the next, Mr. Hoban.o.b (much to the horror of Jawleyford) having nearly fallen asleep with his Sevres coffee-cup in his hand, at last drew up his great silver watch by its jack-chain, and finding it was a quarter past ten, prepared to decamp--taking as affectionate a leave of the ladies as if he had been going to China. He was followed by Mr. Jawleyford, to see him pocket his pumps, and also by Mr. Sponge, to see what sort of a night it was.