The Mysteries of the Court of London — page 210: what you’re looking at

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

THE TWINS 183 objects of such interest, — an interest all the deeper inasmuch as there was trouble but too evident in their countenances, despite all their efforts to conceal it. We may here pause to observe that the Mr. Preston who has been mentioned was a man of about fifty, short and slight, of exceeding bustling habits, and with a thorough businesslike air. He had possessed a counting-house in the City, and his private residence was one of the mansions on Cambridge Terrace in the Regent’s Park. He had ever been reputed a rich man, but, unlike Mr. Armytage, he had cared little or nothing for brilliant society, and had never courted it. Perhaps if his affairs had long been failing, he might have located himself in the Regent’s Park with the hope of sustaining the impression that he was really wealthy, rather than for the purpose of mingling in the fashionable world. He was unmarried and childless, and thus, fortu- nately, he had no close connections to be involved in his ruin and disgraced by it. Christian and Christina reached Cambridge Terrace, and their summons at the front door was answered by a police constable. From him they learned that Mr. Preston had committed forgeries to the amount of thirty thousand pounds, as already ascertained, and that it was suspected there were other cases which were yet to transpire. It was only at an early hour in the morning of this same day that the forgeries were discovered by some gentleman in the financial world, and when the police, on receiving the in- formation, had arrived at Cambridge Terrace to apprehend the culprit, they found that he had absconded during the past night. In addition to these particulars, Christian and Christina learned that no papers of any consequence at all had been discovered either at the dwelling in Regent’s Park or at the office in the City, but that in Mr. Preston’s bedroom at the former there were traces of a considerable num- ber of documents having been purposely burned in the grate. Such were the particulars gleaned from the police constable, and the twins passed away from the mansion, slowly and in silence. They walked some distance before they even dared to glance toward each other; they felt that their ruin had been accomplished. At length their looks met, tears filled the eyes of both, and they would have flung themselves EORNIClOoOKS (C(O)