BETWEEN THE LEAVES;
OR, HOW TO LET IN THE ADVERTISERS NEATLY.
CHAPTER LXVII.
The fair girl stepped lightly into the room, and, having daintily removed the dust from her feet by wiping them on one of BIGLOW AND SONS' Patent Crocodile Matting Rugs (delivered carriage free within a radius of twelve miles of their establishment at Ludgate Circus) that was placed before the door, gave a hasty glance round the apartment. She saw at ones from the octagonal ebonised table three feet six, by two feet five inches, the afternoon lounge couch (as advertised), the gent's easy shake-down chair, ladies ditto, and half dozen occasional chairs, all upholstered in rich material in Messrs. MULGRAVE & Co. of 170, Walbrook, City, E.C.'s best style, that a refined taste inspired by a wholesome economy had been exercised in the furnishing of the apartment, and she turned to the old Duke with a grateful nod of recognition.
"What," he asked, in a feeble voice, "is it my own ANGELICA? Surely it is! Come, my child, let me look at you?" He turned up the burner of a BOYCOTLE's Patent Incandescent Gas Lamp (price 13s. 9d. with full paper of instructions complete), and as he stood erect in his rich calico-lined fox-fur dressing-gown (supplied in three qualities by BROHAM & Co, with a discount of 15 per cent. for cash), he looked, every foot of him, a worthy scion of that ancient family of which he was the last living representative. "Let me look at you," he again repeated, drawing his neatly-dressed granddaughter more fully into the light before him. As it fell upon the graceful curves of her lissom figure, it was easy to perceive that she was wearing one of Madame BEAUMONT's celebrated Porcupine Quill Corsets, which lent a wonderful finish to a two-guinea tailor-made gingham cloth "Gem" costume, braided with best silk (horn buttons included), which showed off her young form to such advantage.
He would have added more, but a sudden pallor stole over his complexion, and he reeled towards a chair.
In an instant the bright girl was on her knees at his side. "Dear Grandfather, you are faint!" she cried, an expression of alarm suffusing her beautiful features.
The Duke pointed to a small table—"My Liquid Pork!" he gasped. "Ah! of course!" was her quick response, as she bounded across the room, and returned with an eleven-and-sixpenny bottle of "BOLKIN's Liquid Pork, or, the Emaciated Invalid's Hog-wash"—a stimulating, flesh-creating, life-sustaining food; sold in bottles at 1s. 1½d., 2s. 9d., 5s. 7d., and 11s. 6d.,—of which she quickly poured out half a tumbler, and raised it to the quivering lips of the staggering old nobleman by her side. "How foolish of me not to have thought of this before!" she continued, replenishing the glass, which he emptied in feverish haste.
"I save threepence-halfpenny in a sovereign," he went on, a wicked twinkle kindling in his eye as he spoke, "by taking the eleven-and-sixpenny size—and that is a consideration, my dear. If you don't think so now, with all your young life before you, you will when you come to be my age!"