I was sufficiently recovered from my nervous condition – or else the booze was beginning to work – to be able to discuss with Audi the merits of checked or striped trousers, which had been the great debate among the London nobs that year. I was a check-er myself, having the height and leg for it, but Audi thought they looked bumpkins, which only shows what damned queer taste they had in Austria in those days. Of course, if you’ll put up with Metternich you’ll put up with anything.

Royal Flash