John Cordy Jeaffreson was an English novelist, journalist and writer of popular non-fiction who also worked as an inspector of historical manuscripts.
John Cordy Jeaffreson
The Rapiers of Regent's Park
Hurst and Blackett, 1882. 3 vols.
Mr. Doughty Rapier bought Thurlow Lodge, Regent's Park...without having seen the property. He bought it unintentionally in the auction-mart.
Unfamiliar with the procedures, Rapier had not realized that in 'nodding now and then' he had unwittingly made the highest bid. Dashing outside and hailing a cab, he 'drove to the north-west suburb, to satisfy himself by observations on the spot that there really was such a place as Thurlow Lodge...Having surveyed the gardens, and walked through the occasionally melodious groves that fringed the palatial bijou, he returned to the City in a happy and even triumphant frame of mind'.
Before she had spent a quarter of an hour within the bounds of her husband's new estate, Mrs. Rapier admitted to herself that the bijou palace was precisely the house that she desired...The lawns were skirted by well-grown trees, and so shut in by a high thorn-fence that no vulgar eyes could overlook them from the public road; the walks of the lower shrubberies, leading down to the water, where the canal curved like a natural river, would be delightful in summer, and were abundantly picturesque with the red and crimson and lemon-yellow leaves of autumn still lingering on the branches overhead...
His wife however is outraged, and the culprit is hauled over the coals before she consents to make a visit.