A Servant of Satan: Romantic Career of Prado the Assassin — page 188: what you’re looking at

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

180 A SERVANT OF SATAN. CHAPTER XXIL FREDERICK MEETS HIS FATHER. | A few days later, a cab drew up at the door of a hotel on the Puerto del Sol at Madrid, and from it alighted Fred- erick von Waldberg, in his latest vole as Count Linska de - Castillon. Finding, however, the Spanish capital intolerably hot — and dismally empty, he soon turned his steps northward again, and took up his residence in the pretty seaport town of St. Sebastien, which is the most fashionable bath- - Ing-place on the Peninsula. It was crowded at the time with all the cream of Spanish society; and Frederick, with his ordinary skill and savoir faire, soon became acquainted with all the best people there, including a clique of gay young clubmen, who turned the night into day, and gam- bled, danced, flirted, and drank, with untiring energy. Frederick’s passion for cards soon revived in all its in- tensity in this vortex of dissipation, and he seldom left the **Salon de Jeu” of the Casino before the small hours of the morning. At first he won a great deal, but soon his luck began to fail him, and at the end of three weeks he discov- ered, to his disgust, that he had-left on the green baize of the card-table a sum of over 150,000 francs. “This has got to stop,” muttered he, angrily, ‘‘ or I shall soon be running down hill ata rapid pace. ‘The question is, how can I stop now without arousing comment?” At the beginning of his stay in St. Sebastien, he had been introduced by a young Madrilene, who was staying at the same hotel, to a charming family, composed of the father, . an old Spanish grandee; the mother, who had been a comicbooks.co