"Miserable fops," he murmured contemptuously, as he contemplated the admiring men with a scornful sneer. "I loathe the sight of all these nobodies," he grumblingly soliloquized.
Many of them, in fact, had nothing to boast about. Many of these so-called nobles in addition to a noble name, combined magnificent poverty and an abhorrence for honest work; they acquired a heap of debts and their inherited estates were often in the hands of unscrupulous usurers, or mortgaged to the last cent, while the sneering one had money in such abundance that he could have purchased patents of nobility for an entire regiment, and still have a reserve revenue from his unfathomable gold mine in South Africa. His finances would have allowed him the luxury of such a woman—although it must be whispered he had a wife in England, divorced some people asserted.
II.
It was seven o'clock; the great animated festival drew near its end. At a given signal from the master of ceremonies, the music on the esplanade stopped; a hush fell on the distinguished gathering.
Archduke Victor, in his own exalted person, was to award the stipulated prizes to the boats of most artistic and original designs.
The fanfares sounded gayly over land and sea, and all the boats small and large ranged themselves in a semi-circle about the illustrious judge. The first prize, a silver statuette of the Goddess Hebe, was awarded to the fascinating princess of Egypt.
With a flourish of trumpets, and amid shouts of applause from the enthusiastic throng, all looked around for the boat of the prize winner. But there was no sign of it anywhere, nor was the single boat of the slender Englishman to be seen any more.