‘Mr. Raily,’ answered Griffiths, ‘seems to me one of those mysterious and strange individuals, like the Comte de Saint Germain[98] and Cagliostro, who appear to me to live upon everything except their incomes. When you have seen him, I’ll give you a more detailed biography. In all my journeys I have invariably met him living upon a footing either implying the possession of great wealth or the clever means of getting it. The first time I met him was at Lord Cornwallis’s in India; since then I have seen him in Hamburg, in Sweden, in Moscow, in Paris at the period of the Peace of Amiens, when he told me he had just arrived from Spain. And now, he is here in Vienna, where he outshines the most opulent. One is almost tempted to say that he seeks to forget or to hide the origin of his wealth. His dinners are much run after; his guests are of the highest rank, for he seems to set particular store upon their quality and titles. A duke seated at his board fills him with joy, an excellency produces merely a glowing sensation of comfort; but a royal highness produces a kind of feeling no mortal pen can describe. If etiquette permitted their majesties to visit him, Mr. Raily would in a few days be bereft of his reason. You shall judge of it for yourself, for I dare say he’ll invite us, if only from sheer ostentation.’ Mr. Raily had taken up his temporary quarters in the magnificent mansion of the Comte de Rosenberg. He welcomed us with the exaggerated courtesy common to all those who are not affable either by instinct or constant habit. He was very important about his house, the furniture, his horses and carriages and the servants, which provided, as it were, the conversational transition to the dinners, and became a bore to the guests. He enumerated the highnesses and the celebrities that had partaken of his hospitality, or were about to do so, and, as Griffiths had foreseen, wound up by saying: ‘If you do not mind an invitation at such a short notice, gentlemen, I shall be delighted if you’ll dine with me to-day with the hereditary princes of Bavaria and Würtemberg, the Grand-Duke of Baden, Admiral Sir Sidney Smith, several ambassadors and _chargés_ and other personages of distinction whom you doubtless know.’