The Mysteries of the Court of London — page 243: what you’re looking at

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

216 REYNOLDS’ WORKS protected by a row of iron bars. I advertised that they were worth seventy thousand pounds, and ail the town came to see them. At length one of the workmen who had helped to gild the granite came to the exhibition one Monday morning, and as he was the worse for liquor to the extent of some three or four pots of beer, he let out the whole secret. I decamped, but with about eight hundred pounds in my pocket, — the fruit of a fortnight’s industry in displaying my nuggets. And would you believe it, Ben, I fell a second time amongst thieves, and was plundered of my all!” “ Light come, light go,” said Mr. Limber, laughing. ‘“ Ah! it was no laughing matter for me,’’ observed Mr. Bealby, ‘‘ and I was obliged to take to something else. Some little speculation which I need not dwell upon — it was merely the exhibition of a sea-serpent, being three conger-eels curiously joined together — produced me fifty guineas, and then I resolved to turn curiosity-maker on my own account. I took these rooms, I applied myself assid- uously to work, I invested my little capital, and now that I have got my stock in trade all in readiness, there comes a lull in the curiosity market, things are flat, skeletons are below par, old armour is at a discount, there is no briskness in Roman brickbats, vessels from Herculaneum are dull, and nothing but that mummy appears to be looking up.” ‘As pleasant a series of adventures as ever one could wish to hear,” said Ben Limber. ‘‘ You are poor, and I am poorer still; you will have five pounds to-morrow for yourself out of the twenty, I have not got five pence and no chance of getting them either.’’ ‘“ Never mind, my boy,” said Mr. Bealby, “‘ we shall be able to do something together. There’s always a fine opening for men of enterprise and talent in this great metropolis. And I tell you what, Ben,’ added the archeological gentleman, in a tone of confidence, which was accompanied by a look rendered all the more mysterious by the influence of the alcoholic liquor, “two chaps could work an oracle much better than one. I have often felt the want of a clever partner or assistant. Lord bless you! if I had only pos- sessed such an auxiliary as yourself, I should have invented and exhibited the perpetual motion long ago. But then where the devil was I to get a trustworthy fellow to turn the crank in the cellar? ”’ CORNICLOOKS (E(0)