The Mysteries of the Court of London — page 75: what you’re looking at

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

56 REYNOLDS’ WORKS become habitual. Presently a solitary guest, whose form and countenance were completely concealed by a long flowing domino, strolled in a leisurely manner into the refreshment-room, surveyed the profusely covered tables through a small opening in his hood, and then seating him- self, began paying his respects to cold chicken and ham. The butler at once let fly the cork of a bottle of champagne, which he placed upon the table near the solitary supper eater, and the contents of that bottle speedily disappeared down the supper eater’s throat. But it could scarcely be a matter of surprise that he required so considerable a quantity of wine, inasmuch as it had to wash down a pro- portionate amount of food, for it was no ordinary supper of which this gentleman had partaken. He kept his hood all the time over his head, and as much over his countenance too as the process of eating and drinking would permit, but this circumstance was no source of marvel to the butler, inasmuch as he knew that the masques were to preserve their incognito until a prescribed hour; and with this knowl- edge likewise, the other domestics in attendance abstained, with a becoming delicacy, from standing anywhere in front of the supper eater, so that they might not have the appear- ance of being inspired by curiosity to ascertain who he was. Having partaken of a copious repast, emptied the cham- pagne-bottle, and finished off with a few glasses of sherry and port, the gentleman in the domino issued from the room. About twenty minutes elapsed, during which a few other guests strolled in to partake of wine or lemonade, but of nothing more substantial, and the butler was still maintaining his post at the sideboard, when he was recalled from a temporary fit of abstraction to the fact that the identical domino of the copious supper eater was again introducing itself to his visual perception. The worthy butler of course thought that it could be nothing more than the mere curiosity of an idle lounger strolling in to see how things were pro- sressing in the refreshment-room, but scarcely could that same butler believe his own eyes, when he saw the domino sit down quietly at the table, and commence a vigorous attack upon the viands nearest. It required no small circum- stance to shake the butler from the equilibrium of his prim formal dignity, but at this spectacle, which comprised the rapid disappearance of a savoury pie, he certainly did Gomicboo cS (E(0)