The Mysteries of the Court of London — page 326: what you’re looking at

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

320 THE MYSTERIES OF THE COURT. thousand the other day; so it is a devilish good } other spectators, with a feeling of cheerfulness and sweep for him to get back a quarter of it in soja sense of exhilarating amusement. But by de- short a time. By the bye, tell Toddington like- | grees our hero began to conceive strange notions wise that I will give him eight hundred for that | respecting the delicacy of all that he saw before black mare of his’ i him. There were male bathers in a condition of Here there was another stopping-short; and gperfect nudity within five or six yards of female Mr. Sycamore, throwing himself back in his chair, Pbathers, who certainly were enveloped in long yawned considerably: but Christian could not help } gowns, but they were so loose that they came open noticing that the waiter had left the room a few | at the breast with every ripple of the sea and with instants before the task of dictation was thus sus- | every movement of the form. Then, too, the pended. He shortly returned to finish clearing | gentlemen were swimming about in all directions, away the table; and the instant his steps were | performing a thousand evolutions ow the water as heard upon the landing outside, the dictation was | well as in it,—floating on their stomachs and their renewed. We will not, however, inflict any more | backs—leaping high to dive down head foremost— of it upon our readers: suffice it to say that the | or ascending the steps at the back of the machines remainder of the letter to the Duke of Ar- | in order to plunge off into the sea again. Then on lington was in the same familiar style as its} the shore, too, Christian could not help observing commencement: so that to disbelieve the fact | that the ladies rambled or stood nearest to those that the Hon. Talbot Sycamore was the very | points where the gentlemen were bathing. Some dear and intimate friend of his Grace of Arlington, | sate upon the sands pretending to be deeply ab- would have been tantamount to the guilt of a sup- | sorbed in the novels which they held in their position that the said Hon. Talbot Sycamore was | hands: but the pages were only turned at very dictating a tissue of falsehoods either for pur-|long intervals, and the eyes which should have poses of vain-glory, or for others still less inno- | been bent upon them, were peering over at the cent. flandering, swimming, leaping, diving, antic- Several more letters were dictated to noblemen | playing gentlemen-bathers. and baronets; and thence it was to be inferred| But if the ladies thus congregated near the that Mr. Sycamore did indeed enjoy a very select | places were those of the opposite sex were frolick- and honourable acquaintance amidst the titled | ing in the water, the gentlemen-spectators on the aristocracy of the three kingdoms. When the| other hand seemed as if by accident—Oh, yes! letters were all finished, Mr. Sycamore affixed his | quite by accident—to be lounging individually or signature thereto: they were duly folded—placed | collectively in little groups nearest to where the in enyelopes—addressed—-and sealed with the Hon. | fair sex, like so many draped nereids, were dis- Talbot Sycamore’s armorial bearings, which con-| porting in the sun-lit sea. Many a fair bosom sisted of a griffin with three heads and such other | thus unveiled its beauties to the libertine regards little curious conceptions as the wisdom of the | devouringly fixed upon them :—glimpses of white Heralds’ College or the genius of some imagina- | glancing limbs were likewise caught as the fair tive seal-engraver had succeeded in producing. batheeactice’ swimming by the aid of the “Shall I take these letters to the post?” in-| guides, or as they ascended the steps of the ma- quired Christian, when the morning’s task was | chines on emerging from the water. Hoary old over. men riveted their gloating looks upon those «Yes—you may,” replied Mr. Sycamore, in his | charming bathers ; and some even went so far or wonted languid indifferent manner: but just as} were so carried away by their libidinous feelings, Christian was about to leave the room, he said. | as to raise their eye-glasses all the better to catch “No! on second thoughts I’ll take them myself. | and devour the glimpses of those charms which I shall be passing that way in my rambles; and I| were being continuously revealed to them. And have got an inquiry to make about a letter which | the ladies knew full well that they were thus the oucht to have reached me here.” objects of such earnest contemplation on the part Christian issued from the hotel to take a walk;| of the gentlemen-spectators: but they exhibited and he naturally reflected on all that had been| no indignation—no blush of shame rose to their done in reference to the letter-writing. He had|cheeks—no voice of offended modesty appealed to certain misgivings in his mind: but yet he dared | the guides to request that the insolent beholders not allow them to obtain an immediate ascend- | might be desired to stand back. ancy over him. It looked very much as if the} As the consciousness that all these disgusting Hon. Mr. Sycamore had dictated in a particular | and scandalous indelicacies were being enacted be- sense, in order to impress the hotel-waiter with a| fore him, gradually dawned into the mind of grand idea of his finances, his acquaintances, and | Christian Ashton, he at first felt astonished: he his general respectability, so that the hotel func-| could scarcely believe the evidence of his own tionary might go and report everything to the| senses. Yet it was indeed but too true!—for landlord :—but, on the other hand, it might all be | there, in the broad daylight, with the sun’s re- correct, legitimate, and straightforward enough, | fulgence blazing upon the entire scene, was all this and nothing more reprehensible in the gentleman’s | going on. Very fortunate was it for the pro- , mode of procedure than a love of ostentation and| prietors of the machines that their bathers be- ¢ prideful display. At all events, Christian was | longed to the well-to-do orders, numbering amongst resolved not to be too ready to jump at a conclu-| them persons of rank, standing, and wealth. Oh! sion, nor stand the chance of doing his employer | if those bathers had only belonged to the poorer an injustice by a rash and precipitate formation of | classes, how the saints would have held up their opinion. hands and turned up the whites of their eyes! He repaired to the sands where the visitors were | what tirades would have been heard from the ; bathing: and at first he stood looking on, amidst! pulpits of churches and from within the walls of | ee er eae” ee nnn SO RS REL OT ee er tee eet Re TS ET ee ee eR ee ”~ COMMKELIOOlKS. EO)