The Mysteries of the Court of London, Vol. 7 — page 78: what you’re looking at

Machine-transcribed from the original scan — historical spelling and the odd misread are preserved.

——— ey " length said. ~/ who be »2—nor what he 1s. ogi ner Oe a a ann a on sana ik AOR aetna eee eee me THR MYSTREIZG OF THR COTRT. jmnenieen enemas issn anneal el hwnrred thousand pounds !—and { wile weer atald what she was about to say,—" perhaps vou will favour me with 4 reference f” “T have none to gyve—I am acquainted with no one in London—TI am a total stranger here. But whatsoever gum in advance you require, you may have ,’—and as the stranger thus spoko, he drew forth a well-iilled purse, “Bhat is not exactly, sir, the same thing,” ob- sarved Mrs, Meeaylay : for she thought to herself, “ Did nat the gentleman with the red hay, whe "wag no gentleman efter all, pay me a fortnight w advanpe, eh manage to run into my debt ten pounds, in spite of all [ could do? and when asked him for @ settlement, did he not run away " with my plated coffee-pot and mx silver speons ?” —so 94 the worthy landlady hastily reviewed these . coropenaianoeg an her past expenence, she was resolved to take warning therefrom in her present dealings. “T am pot offended,” replied the stranger, in his mild gentlemanly yore, ‘ that you should sgek guarantees fox the respectability of tlose who take apartments beneath your roof. Your conduct is in itself a gusrantec that your hauee 1s a repecta- ‘ble one. tell you again that I am a pertect stranger in London. but yf you will call at the great bankers’ yn the Strand’’—and he named tho firm to which he allyd¢d—“ they wall, ] think,givo you cvery satisfactory information. The apartments suit me, and as J haye taken the trouble to look at thom, and have given you the trouble to show thém, I have no inclination to go searching elae- where” ° “I am very muely gbliged, sir,” answered Mrs. Macaulay, now cheering up onge more ‘ such a “reference will be highly satisfactory. What name, it you please, sir P” “Make your inqyiries relative to Mr. Red- cliffe,” rejoined the gentleman. and he thc reupon tovuk his departure. Mrs Macaulay Jost not 9 moment in procecd- ing to the bankers’, and on putting the inquiry to one of the cle:ks at the counter, she was re- ferred to a gentleman in an inner room. She did not much uke thie, and agai her spiits fel] fur she thought that if her would-be ludger had an account gt the bank, the clerke must all be pre pared to answer any inquines. However, she put her question to the gentleman to whom she was thus introduced in the private room, and hoe, having hetened to her, giavely turned over the leaves sof a buge book which lay open befoye him. “J know nothng of Mr Redclffe,” he a “Then T° am robbed of my time, and should have been swindled out of py rent!” ejaculated the irate Mrs Macaulay. “ Who knows but that be would have walked off with another coffee-pot and another six miver spoons r”’ * Btop, stop, my good wounan '™ mterrupted the bawker, with an itaperious wave of me pen “you thould have patience. I was going to say that | know nothing of Mr. Redchffe personally— nor But this J do know— that XY have® upwards of one hundred thousand pounds in my hands, tathe account of that gcn- Heman,” ~ Ah, dear mo!’ said Mrs. Macaulay, seucely able to epeak through utter amazement, “A or rrr tern Ein rpeeirennenmermntrnin nner of my plated coffee-pot and my ailver apace Hf “T think, me’am.” resumod the bankée;, ¥ th , if you haye alr, Redchife ns 0 ludger ah wee wary pomng him to be the same Clement Redehih whose name figures mn my bovk—you run 44 of lomng your coffee-pot or your milver The banker then bowed slightly, but with de uninistakable ar of a man who had no mon bo say, and whose time waa precwus Mra. Macau thereupon took her leave; and entering an outai- bua, wae borne in the direction of her own rae dence, Rut dumng the ride fresh nyegiings gradually arose in the mind of thia very cautions, and indeed auspicious woman. What after all the individual who bad taken hor apartments, wae not the real Clement Redcliffe? what if he wore some swindler, who having learnt that a gentle- man of such 6 name had money at the bank, but was not known there, had availed himeclf of sugh infurmahion ta pags himself off as the veritable Myr. Redehffe? She worked heralf up to such a piteh of suepirion and mistrust that she was half- inclincd (o refyse tu receive the gentleman. Sha thought it so odd that a man worth upwards of ong hundred thousand pounds, should be without a single agquatntance in London. She could scarcely believe it wos so; and therefore wegarded it as an extueae on tho part of an impostor ior not giving any other refarence than the one to the bavke1, But then, aa she entored Mortimer Stycet~gqlanced at Maa. Sitkinas’ over the way--~ and thought of how she bad over-rcached beiself by her suspicions in respect to the old gentleman who bad tak¢n her 31val’s lodgings, had lived there dor years, had paid tne rent regularly, and never luoked into his tea-caddy, —she endeavoured to rea- con byrsal{ againet her present mistrust In ebort, the result was that she decided wm the gy ntleman’s fayour—thopgh not without a lingering apprehen- mvn in her nund that she was doimg wrong and that he would turn out # swindler after al], ‘I'he new iodgery luggage presently arrived trom the neighbouring hotel, and as Mrs. Macaulay was gn the luok-vut for the porter who brought it, she beqkon . the man into Ler parlaur, gave him a gloss of .o—nog forgetting to take one Jeiself Lkewise - und began to questing him. “Who 1s this Mr. Bedchile P” she inquired. “Don’t kyow, me’am, nothink about the gen- tlouan—oply that he has paid all the servants m & Ory ‘andsome manner.” * © How long has he been at your hotel ?” ‘Why, he come iust of all a matter of az or seyen weeks back, 1 should think, as near as J can recollect But he only stayed 9 few days, and was shut up in lws room looking over all $he ald files af newspapers he could possibly get hald of. We have filed the Times at our place for the last twenty year and, bless me! at I doan’é think he must have read it all through—fory he wae always poring over it froin morning to mght. The head waiter said as huw he thought the gentleman was either a politician studying politags—-or eleo taucied his- self to be the hen-gt-law of a fortune, and was lovking out for the alvertisemonts to the nextrafs kin—or else that be must have been abroad « mahy yearr, and on cuming home wanted td see what had tovk place in lis absence.” “ How etrange!” said Mrs. Macaulay: then as NOG SS