The Mysteries of the Court of London — page 47: what you’re looking at

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

CHAPTER IV THE MURDER IT was now one o’clock in the morning; but Mrs. Young’s establishment was not one of those where very good hours were kept, and on arriving there the Buttoner found Nell Gibson and three or four other young women sitting up and drinking brandy together. The instant the man thus made his appearance Nell Gibson threw upon him a look of significant inquiry, as much as to ask what had been done and whether the plot had succeeded; for, as the reader will bear in mind, she was in reality very far from being the authoress of the betrayal of that plot to Larry Sampson, and she was therefore totally ignorant of all that had taken place since she leit the dark crib three hours previously. But the Buttoner of course fancied that this look of in- quiry was only a pretence on Nell’s part in order to avert suspicion from herself, or else defy it with a brazen face; ‘and therefore putting on a good-humoured look, as if he did not suspect her at all, he beckoned her to come out of the room. The young woman had not the slightest reason to refuse; on the contrary, she was most anxious to learn what had taken place, and supposing that her flash man now summoned her away to converse somewhere else without the danger of being overheard, she unhesitatingly rose from her seat, threw on her bonnet and cloak, and prepared to accompany him. In the passage they encountered Mother Franklin, who had evidently been paying her respects to a bottle of strong waters, for she was now reeling about in a horrible state of ebriety. A tipsy woman is at all times a shocking spectacle, but this old hag of nearly ninety, with her bleared eyes now 30 CORNICE OOOKS (E(0)