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Updated: June 29, 2025
Puffington, 'that's like him: there's nothing pleases him so much as getting fellows into grief. 'Not very polite to a stranger, observed Mr. Sponge. 'No, it isn't, replied Mr. Puffington, 'no, it isn't; far from it indeed far from it; but, low be it spoken, added he, 'his lordship is only a roughish sort of customer. 'So he is, replied Mr. Sponge, who thought it fine to abuse a nobleman.
Great Heavens! but they were tight, and smart, and shiny; and Puffington was just as tight, and smart, and shiny as any of them. He was as much in his element here as he appeared to be out of it in Oxford Street. It might be prejudice, or want of penetration on our part, but we thought he looked as high-bred as any of them.
He was a little, soft, rosy, roundabout man, with stiff resolute legs that did not look as if they could be bent to a saddle. He was great, however, in a gig, and slouched like a sack. Mrs. Puffington, née Smith, was a tall handsome woman, who thought a good deal of herself.
'Not that I've seen, answered Puffington, adding, 'I thought, perhaps, you might come together. 'No, grunted Jack; 'he comes from Jawleyford's, you know; I'm from Woodmansterne. 'We'll go and see if he's come, observed Puffington, opening a door in the garden-wall, into which he had manoeuvred Jack, communicating with the courtyard of the stable.
The reader will now have the kindness to consider that Mr. Puffington has undergone his swell huntsman, Dick Bragg, for three whole years, during which time it was difficult to say whether his winter's service or his summer's impudence was most oppressive. Either way, Mr. Puffington had had enough both of him and the honours of hound-keeping. Mr. Bragg was not a judicious tyrant.
Puffington scrawled a miserable-looking note, explaining how very ill he was, how he regretted being deprived of Mr. Sponge's agreeable society, but hoping that it would suit Mr. Sponge to return as soon as he was better and pay the remainder of his visit a pretty intelligible notice to quit, and one which even the cool Mr. Sponge was rather at a loss how to parry.
'Do you stay long in this part of the world? asked he, as at last he succeeded, and commenced tapping the corners of the card on the table. 'I really don't know, replied Mr. Sponge, as the particulars of his situation flashed across his mind. Could this pudding-headed man be a chap Puffington had got to come and sound him, thought he.
Thus it appeared in the middle of the third sheet of the Swillingford Patriot: SPLENDID RUN WITH MR. PUFFINGTON'S HOUNDS. This splendid pack had a superb run from Hollyburn Hanger, the property of its truly popular and sporting owner, Mr. Puffington.
A meeting of the Mangeysterne hunt was called at the sign of the Thirsty Freeman in Swillingford Sir Charles Figgs, Knight a large-promising but badly paying subscriber in the chair, when it was proposed and carried unanimously that Mr. Puffington was eminently qualified for the mastership of the hunt, and that it be offered to him accordingly.
'Well, said Sponge, looking up, 'I've got "truly popular and sporting master, Mr. Puffington," adding, 'hadn't we better say something about the meet and the grand spread here before we begin with the run? 'True, replied Jack, after a long-drawn whiff and another adjustment of the end of his cigar; 'say that "a splendid field of well-appointed sportsmen"
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