The Mysteries of the Court of London — page 193: what you’re looking at

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

168 THE COURT OF LONDON imagination, but which were discarded one after the other, as soon as conceived. Thus, by the time he had ceased speaking, she had decided upon nothing, but was plunged in still more painful bewilderment, terror, and dismay than at first. “You cannot be serious in what you say? ” she suddenly cried, in a fit of desperation. ‘“‘ Tell me what will satisfy you, what sum do you require? Name the amount, and it shall be yours. Come with me to my uncle’s chamber, and he will at once satisfy you on that score.”’ “It is not gold that I want just at this moment,” said the Hangman, doggedly. ‘‘I have made two hundred gvuineas to-day from Sir Douglas Huntingdon, and six days hence I am to have five hundred more from the prince regent, which, by the bye, you yourself are to bring me — ” “TI! What mean you?’ exclaimed Ernestina, in amaze- ment. “Oh, it is all cut and dried between me and the prince,”’ returned the Hangman. ‘I honoured his Royal Highness with my noble presence at his crib—I mean Carlton House — yesterday, and we had a cosy chat together. I told him that I did not want to be made a marquis or a duke or an earl, or any nonsense of that sort, but what I wanted was coin, blunt, cash, rhino.” ‘“ Well, what next? ” inquired Ernestina. “The prince promised that I should have five hundred guineas in a week. That is to say, next Wednesday night, at eleven o’clock, in the middle recess of Westminster Bridge on the left hand side going over, your ladyship is to put into my hands the sum named.”’ “ But what on earth made the prince fix upon me?” demanded Ernestina, all her thoughts now turned into another channel. ‘Oh, simply because he said that as you was interested in the matter, you ought to take a part in it. But it 1s possible, you know, that the prince may think better of it and send somebody else instead of your ladyship. It don’t matter to me who it is, so long as some one keeps the appoint- ment and brings the money.” While the Hangman was thus speaking, a thought which had suddenly sprung vaguely up in Ernestina’s mind rapidly expanded into a tangible consistency, and by the time he CoOnniclooolkxs (E(@)