Some links.

[heliopausa]

From Gutenberg:   an 1860s book, listing and discussing then-current and earlier slang.    Which I thought was terrifically interesting in itself, but also useful as a language resource for historical fiction.
(And I was also interested to see how many words which feel very Australian to me were in there.)

A notional board game to illustrate the

Comments

[houseboatonstyx]

In a battered fedora which sported a frayed press card?

[heliopausa]

:D and a shifty demeanour!

[houseboatonstyx]

And in a dim booth across the room, a slender man in a white panama suit with sinister intentions.

[heliopausa]

oooohh! I think the Prince may have met his match!

[wellinghall]

Those all look like interesting links, and I shall check them out. Thanks!

[heliopausa]

You're very welcome! :)

[asakiyume]

I like the transitive verb "travesty"! "The Prince had, as usual, travestied his appearance by the addition of false whiskers and a pair of large adhesive eyebrows." And the notion of looking like a journalist who's fallen on hard times--there was a character in There Is No Lovely End (a book by a friend that I read recently) who was exactly that, and now I'm wondering if the friend knew this Stevenson story

[heliopausa]

I loved the idea that the Prince is so urbane that shaggy eyebrows make him completely unrecognisable! :D As for the journo, I have wondered if Stevenson was seeing himself (in the present,or in a gloomy future?) as the impecunious person associated with the Press.

And yes indeed, re: the mindset that respects a leader with a modest standard of living.