The Mysteries of the Court of London — page 258: what you’re looking at

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

THE KING’S BENCH 231 exclaimed the fourth of this delectable party, when the laughter had again subsided. ‘“‘ On coming of age, I received thirty thousand pounds of my own fortune, and married a young lady who had fifty thousand pounds as her fortune. But within three months after this marriage I was introduced to Madame Profligata, the celebrated actress, and though she is not half so good-looking as my own wife, yet I was fool enough to fancy that it was a very grand thing to have such a woman as my mistress. I accordingly made overtures, and came to an agreement to allow her a house, carriage, and five hundred a year; but the very day aiter she was installed in her new dwelling, she told me that she could not possibly stir out for want of diamonds. I accordingly sent to the most fashionable jeweller to bring up some sets of brilliants; and I offered madame a present of gems valued at about a thousand guineas. Thereupon she burst out laughing in my face, and told me if I meant to do things in a chandler’s shop style we had better cut it at once. I trembled at the idea of being ridiculed before all the world by losing my mistress for such a trifle, and therefore allowed her to select diamonds to the amount of six thousand guineas. To be brief, madame required so many valuables of all descriptions, had so many long-standing debts which must be paid, and went out shopping so incessantly, that in less than three months she positively wheedled me out of twenty thousand pounds. Her extravagance grew more unbounded as she perceived that I was soft and yielding, so that before we had been a year together she had swallowed up not only my own fortune, but also my wife’s. And now, speaking of my wife, I may as well state that she returned home to her friends, while I lived altogether with madame. All my ready cash being gone, my insatiate mistress taught me how to raise money upon bills; and strange, almost incredible as it may seem, I negotiated in one year my own acceptances to the tune of eighty thousand guineas, for which all the value that we obtained was about three thousand in money, ten thousand in wine, which nobody could drink, ten thou- sand in pictures, the veriest of daubs, and all the rest was absorbed in what was called discount and commission. At last, when my name was so regularly worn out that not a discounter would look at it, madame picked a quarrel with me, and we parted. The very next day I heard that she COM a LOOOLK<S (CO)