The Mysteries of the Court of London — page 172: what you’re looking at

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

THE MYSTERIES OF THE COURT. 161 ‘ : st Kiberally—gave me his address in London—and to me; and I disposed of all my curiosities. But told me to call upon him. This interview gave a I was terribly disappointed at the pettiness of new impetus to my fertile fancy. I provided ‘mys the price which I obtained for them. I really self with all sorts of ouriosities,—a piece of the: thought that I was playing an excellent game with true cross which a Cardinal had given me in Rome | the credulity of the curiosity-dealer,—uatil on —a fragment of the holy coat which is preserved grumbling at his terms, he gave me to understand at Troves, and which fragment a monk whom I it was the ideas he was paying for, and not the made tipsy had sacrilegiously torn off for my things thomselves—for those he knew to be all ‘special gratification — the veritable cannon-ball humbugs. Then I laughed heartily—he laughed which struck the spire of Bt. Stephen’s at Vienna | and knocked it on one side, when the Turks besieged © that city—the bullet which slew Nelson at Trafal. | gar—the identical pen with which Napoleon signed | the treaty of Amiens,—in short, I cannot enume- rate the curiosities, ancient and modern, with which I provided myself while on my journey to London. Then, on arriving there, instead of call- ing on the old purveyor whom I had encountered et the tile-kilo, I went straight to the shop in Wardour Street, which he had happened to namé No. 73 —Fourtu Senizs. likewiso—and the end of it all was he offered me a regular engagement. I remained with him for | about six months, helping him with the ingenuity of my original ideas, and becoming ivitiated in many of the mysteries of his craft. He taught me, for instance, how tu get up old pictures; and T learnt that he constantly employed six artists to paint him originals of Rubens, Vandyko, Titian, Greuze ——” “ Originals?” ejaculated Bon Limber. “Why, of course !—woren’t they to be sold as ETE comicibooks.conm