The Mysteries of the Court of London by Pauline Clarendon — page 266: what you’re looking at

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

TOO LATE 263 but to the humanity of his royal debtor; not confidently demanding his own, as a right, but servilely beseeching payment asa boon. [or this is the manner in which princes must be addressed, and they are not letters which you write to them, but petitions! But to that appeal no answer was returned. It was quite sufficient if his Royal Highness deigned to give the subject a thought. How could he be expected to trouble himself so far as to pen a reply? Driven almost to des- peration, perceiving Ruin in his presence, with only the interval of a few short hours, and having his heart filled with a boundless sympathy for that wife who for eighteen years had been a true and faithful companion to him, and for that daughter of sixteen who was so beautiful and innocent, and whom he loved so fondly, the merchant had at length resolved to call at Carlton House. Thither he repaired; and, in a mild and respectful voice, solicited a few moments’ audience of the prince. The hall porters judged that he was a dun, and met his civility with coarse and brutalinsult. Still did John Foster preserve his temper, still did he forbear to utter anything disrespectful toward the prince; but he implored one of the insolent, powdered, and lace-bedizened menials to bear a message to his Royal Highness. The request was refused with a positive rufhanism of manner; and Foster, sinking upon one of the chairs in the marble hall, gave way to his grief. Then was it that Germain was sent for; and the merchant, addressing that valet with as much respect as if he were a great lord and Foster himself a grovelling beggar, earnestly besought either an instant’s audience of the prince or an answer to a letter which he had previously forwarded. Germain declared that it was impossible to disturb his royal master at that hour; but he spoke in a respectful, almost kind tone. Then was it that Foster, driven to despair, exclaimed that he should be ruined unless one or the other of his requests was granted. Germain still refused to interfere, and the merchant dragged himself away from the princely dwelling, in a state of mind which it is scarcely possible to ex- plain. Oh, there are times when the brain reels with a sense of misery, misery, misery, from which no means of escape appear, and to which no relief can come, times when the CONnnicloool KS (GO)