Page:Memoirs of the Lady Hester Stanhope.djvu/104

 spark of good feeling to any human being. How often has he put men of small incomes to great inconvenience, by his telling them he would dine with them and bring ten or a dozen of his friends with him to drink the poor devils’ champagne, who hardly knew how to raise the wind, or to get trust for it! I recollect one Who told me the Prince served him in this way, just at the time when he was in want of money, and that he did not know how to provide the dinner for him, when luckily a Sir Harry Featherstone or a Sir Gilbert Heatchcote or some such rich man bought his curricle and horses, and put a little ready money into his pocket. 'I entertained him as well as I could,' said he, 'and a few days after, when I was at Carlton House, and the Prince was dressing between four great mirrors, looking at himself in one and then in another, putting on a patch of hair and arranging his cravat, he began saying that he was desirous of showing me his thanks for my civility to him. So he pulled down a bandbox from a shelf, and seemed as if he was going to draw something of value out of it. I thought to myself it might be some point-lace, perhaps, of which, after using a little for my court-dress, I might sell the remainder for five or six hundred guineas: or perhaps, thought I, as there is no ceremony between us, he is going to give me some banknotes. Conceive my astonishment, when he opened