The Works of George W. M. Reynolds — page 82: what you’re looking at

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

THE NOBLE INTIMATES 65 the alcohol produced not the desired effect, and so the game was abandoned. They then proceeded to the stables belonging to Saxondale Mansion, and mounting a couple of horses, went for a ride in the park, attended by a groom. Having ridden twice around, they dismounted, left their horses with the groom, and entered the enclosure, to have a chat with the pretty nurse-maids who were attending upon the children playing about, and in this way another hour was spent. They then returned to their horses and rode down to Tattersall’s, where they looked in, “ just to see what was going on,” and afterward proceeded to a club in St. James’s Street, where they posted themselves at the bow-window to ogle the women who passed by. This brought on six o'clock, and then they deliberated for half an hour where they should dine. Staunton suggested a Bond Street hotel, but Saxondale declared, with a more affected crack in his voice than ever, that the turtle was not good there, and accordingly proposed another place, to which Staunton had a similar objection in respect to the venison of this estab- lishment. They had almost decided upon a third when they recollected that the ice-punch was by no means of good quality the last time they were there, and the name of a fourth hotel was likewise blackballed, on the score that there was never enough of cayenne in the soup. A fifth hotel was discussed for ten minutes, but also eschewed, not through any fault in the culinary department, but because the proprietor had attended to oppose Lord Cecil Stafford when he went through the court; and a sixth was discarded because the head waiter had such very bad teeth. Ultimately these two aristocratic coxcombs decided upon their dining-place, and thither did they repair. The important process of dinner engaged them up till nearly ten o’clock, and then they issued forth to smoke their cigars in the Quadrant, and look at the women parading there. Lord Harold was perfectly sober, but his friend admitted to him, with the mysterious confidence of inebria- tion, that he was already “ more than _ half-seas over.’’ Having taken a few strolls up and down the Quadrant, — the arcade of which was not then cleared away, — they agreed upon adjourning to some place of amusement, and, aiter due deliberation, decided upon the gaming-table. They accordingly turned out of the Quadrant into one of GoOmiGcoooks (S(O)