Her Royal Lover: A Novel — page 252: what you’re looking at

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

244 _ HER ROYAL LOVER. sars the plump red hand, filled with gold of the Princess Corysande, the last daughter of the Em- press of Hindustan. He and his mother, expecting from the lassitude and discouragement, which this princess was experiencing on seeing her efforts con- stantly baffled to ensnare on the wing any royal prince whatever, hoped to arrive to making her de- scend at last the necessary rounds of the ladder to put her on a level with the Pattenpoufis. Here, the witty Schmke, interested in several financial companies whose snares—pardon—whose headquarters were in reality the office of his jour- nal, although, he had taken care very ostensibly, to announce it as being in one of the most sumptuous hotels lately erected in the city. Itis he who, not sparing sonorous words and inordinate promises, launched bombastic articles about the new loans where the simpletons and the slender purses lost their savings so painfully acquired. Many words, much ink, much paper, (those three things of the best quality), and that is all. No more gold or lead mines, no more canals or railroads, than in the hollow of the hand. He was walking, tripping along briskly, and smartly, all fluttering, at being for once—and once only—admitted in the salon of the court. He had on his arm the Count- ess de Horsteman, called the “phylloroxera of the buffets,” and this nickname was well-applied, for even as this horrible disease destroys our vines, in like manner, when the countess approached a buffet, it was found ravaged as if a pernicious wind had breathed upon it. Surreptitiously, with a dex- terity which approached the marvelous, she carried away in her light fingers, much like the long nip- pers of crabs, all the portable provisions; she made GEomicbooks, co m