The Mysteries of the Court of London by Pauline Clarendon — page 24: what you’re looking at

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

THE FLIGHT AND THE PURSUIT 21 most bitterly the wild-goose chase which he had that night undertaken and which had brought him into his present unenviable predicament; and then he bethought himself of the two constables whom he had left in the hackney- coach. “The lazy scoundrels!’ he ejaculated aloud; ‘if they had only followed me as I enjoined them, this misfortune could not have occurred. On the contrary, we might have captured the thief who has plundered me. By heaven, ’tis provoking — very provoking! Purse, watch, ring, all gone, and fifty guineas to pay to-morrow night for the pocket- book.”’ While thus giving way to his vexation, Mr. Page rapidly retraced his steps, and in a short time he reached the main road, where he vainly looked about for the hackney-coach. The driver had become tired of waiting, and the constables were accordingly compelled to undertake the settlement of the fare —in pursuance of which agreement, the vehicle carried them back to Holborn. | It was one o’clock in the morning when the commercial traveller — exhausted with fatigue, half-dead with cold, and bitterly repenting of his folly in meddling with matters that did not immediately concern him — reached the George and Blue Boar, where he lost no time in seeking the repose of which he stood so much in need. But even this he was not permitted to enjoy so long as he could have wished; for scarcely had the thousand churches of the mighty metropolis proclaimed the hour of seven, when he was aroused by a violent shaking through the medium of a rough hand applied to the shoulder, and, starting up, he beheld, by the dim light of the cold wintry morning, the forms of Grint and Sneesby by his bedside. These worthies came to dun him for the hackney-coach fare which they had been forced to make up between them, and the wretched man was compelled to borrow the money of the landlord to satisfy their rapacity. SS (GO) 7 COMIC OOO