The Mysteries of the Court of London — page 329: what you’re looking at

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320 thousand the other day; so it is a devilish good sweep for him to get back a quarter of it in so short a time. By the bye, tell Toddington like- wise that I will give him eight hundred for that black mare of his’ -———” Here there was another stopping-short; and Mr. Sycamore, throwing himself back in his chair, yawned considerably: but Christian could not help noticing that the waiter had left the room a few instants before the task of dictation was thus sus- . He shortly returned to finish clearing away the table; and the instant his steps were heard upon the landing outside, the dictation was renewed. We will not, however, inflict any more of it upon our readers: suffice it to say that the remainder of the letter to the Duke of Ar. lington was in the same familiar style as its - Commencement: so that to disbelieve the fact a... that the Hon. Talbot Sycamore was the very dear and intimate friend of his Grace of Arlington, would have heen tantamount to the guilt of a sup- position that the said Hon. Talbot Sycamore was dictating a tissuo of falsehoods either for pur- poses of vain-glory, or for others still less inno- cent. : Several more letters were dictated to noblemen | p and baronets; and thence it was to be inferred that Mr. Sycamore did indeed enjoy a very select and honourable acquaintance amidst the titled i of the three kingdoms. : When the letters were all finished, Mr. Sycamore affixed his signature thereto: they were duly folded—placed in en —and sealed with the Hon. Talbot Sycamore’s armorial bearings, which con- sisted of a griffin with three heads and such other little curious conceptions as the wisdom of the Heralds’ College or the genius of some imagina- tive seal-engraver had succeeded in producing. “Shall I take these letters to the post?” in- quired Christian, when the morning’s task was over. “'Yes—you may,” replied Mr. Sycamore, in his wonted id indifferent manner: but just as Christian was about to leave the room, he said, “No! on second thoughts I'll take them myself. I shall be passing that way in my rambles; and I have got an inquiry to make about a letter which ought to have reached me here.” | Christian issued from the hotel to take a walk; and he naturally reflected on all that had been done in reference to the letter-writing. He had certain misgivings in his mind: but yet he dared not allow them to obtain an immediate ascend- ancy over him. It looked very much as if the Hon. Mr. Sycamore had dictated in a particular sense, in order to impress the hotel-waiter with a his general ility, so that the hotel func- tionary might go and report ing to the landlord :—but, on the other hand, it might all be correct, legitimate, and straightforward enough, and nothing more reprehensible in the gentleman’s mode of procedure than a love of ostentation and prideful display. At all evente, Christian was resolved not to be too ready to jump at a conclu- sion, nor stand the chance of doing his employer an injustice by a rash and precipitate formation of opinion. He repaired to the sands where the visitors were bathing: and at first he stood looking on, amidst e ee : THE MYSTERIES OF THE COURT. other spectators, with a feeling of cheerfulness and a sense of exhilarating amusement. But by de-. grees our hero began to conceive strange notions respecting the delicacy of all that he saw before him. There were male bathers in a condition of perfect nudity within five or six yards of female bathers, who certainly were enveloped in long gowns, but they were so loose that they came open at the breast with every ripple of the sea and with every movement of the form. Then, too, the gentlemen were swimming about in all directions, performing a thousand evolutions on the water as well as in it,—floating on their stomachs and their backs—leaping high to dive down head foremost-= or ascending the steps at the back of the machines in order to plunge off into the sea again. Then on the shore, too, Christian could not help observing that the ladies rambled or stood nearest to those points where the gentlemen were bathing. Some sate upon the sands pretending to be deeply ab- sorbed in the novels which ‘they held in their But if the ladies thus congregated near the places were those of the opposite sex were frolick- ing in the water, the gentlemen-spectators on the other hand seemed as if by accident—Oh, yee! quite by accident—to be lounging individually or collectively in little groups nearest to where the fair sex, like so many draped nereids, were die porting in the sun-lit sea. Many a fair bosom thus unveiled its beauties to the libertine devouringly fixed upon them :—glimpses of whi glancing limbs were likewise caught as th bathers practised swi i g 8 wimming by the aid of guides, or as they ascended the steps of the chines on emerging from the water. Hoary o men riveted their gloating looks upon thos charming bathers ; and some even went so far or were so carried away by their libidinous feelings, as to raise their eye-giasses all ‘the better to catch and devour the glimpses of those charms whick were being continuously revealed to them. And the ladies knew full well that they were thus the objects of such earnest contemplation on the part of the gentlemen-spectators: but they exhibited no indignation—no blush of shame rose to their cheeks—no voice of offended modesty appealed to the guides to request that the insolent beholders might be desired to stand back. As the consciousness that all these disgusting and scandalous indelicacies were being enacted be- fore him, gradually dawned into the mind of Christian Ashton, he at first felt astonished: he could scarcely believe the evidence of his own senses. Yet it was indeed but too true!—for there, in the broad daylight, with the sun’s re- fulgence blasing upon the entire scene, was all this going on. Very fortunate was it for the pro- prietors of the machines that their bathers be- longed to the well-to-do orders, numbering amongst them persons of rank, standing, and wealth. Oh! if those bathers had only belonged to the classes, how the eaints would have held up ther hands and turned up the whites of their eyes ! what tirades would have been heard from the pulpits of churches and from within the walls of cP Ek .—apP COMMUC DOO CS (COL