The Mysteries of the Court of London — page 81: what you’re looking at

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

62 REYNOLDS’ WORKS this country when he came to espouse the British queen was a near relative of the Chevalier Kadger, and when the grand duke’s retinue were deliberating at Mivart’s Hotel how they should indemnify themselves for their exclusion from the palace, the chevalier had resolved to seek the counsel and succour of his relative the valet, for he had an idea floating in his ingenious mind that through such assist- ance himself and his fellow retainers in the ducal service might at least obtain a substantial supper within the palace walls. He accordingly sped to his kinsman, who at first expressed his utter inability to do anything for him, but he presently recollected that a guest who had been seized with a sudden indisposition had departed privately, leaving his domino behind him in an anteroom to which he had retired on first experiencing that sickness. The valet procured the domino, and gave it to the Chevalier Kadger, strictly enjoin- ing him to use it for himself alone, and by no means to transfer it to any of his comrades. But the chevalier was resolved to prove faithful in every respect to his fellow retainers, and on his return to Mivart’s, they all sped off on foot together to Buckingham Palace. Being known as the grand duke’s retainers, they easily obtained admission to an antechamber, while the Chevalier Kadger kept the domino completely folded under his coat. When the ante- chamber was gained, he put on the domino, and had no difficulty in gliding into the saloons where the company were assembled, but he had a keen nose for the refreshments, and speedily making his way to the supper-room, he ban- queted to his heart’s content. The second wearer of the domino was Count Wronki, the duke’s lord steward; the third was the chevalier Gumbinnen, the duke’s lord chamber- Jain; the fourth was General Himmelspinken, the master of the horse; the fifth was Herr Humbogh, the ducal privy seal; and the sixth, as the reader is aware, was the Count Frumpenhausen, the gold stick. But this respectable in- dividual had failed to obtain the supper on account of the most inopportune presence of the prince at the time in the refreshment-room, while Baron Farthenless, who was to have been the last wearer of the universal domino, was waiting in hungry expectation until his fellow retainer Frumpenhausen should return to the anteroom to consign the disguising garment to the said baron’s shoulders. ECORNICLIOOKS (E(0)