To Panama and back

by Henry T. Byford

CHAPTER VI

The Last Day at Sea and the First on Land

A Bad Headache and a Bitter Dose—A Poem—The Singing Cherubs—A Sign of Fair Weather—Promised Feasting—Eating Oneself into Premature Old Age, and Starving into a Ripe Old Age—A Delicate Question—A Business Meeting—Drawing up Resolutions to Exonerate the Captain—The Eads and Jetties—An Enjoyable Toilet—A Hook Apiece—The Penalty of Early Rising—A Cold Day—Discovery of the Preston—Unfavorable Comparison—New Orleans and Oysters—Absinthe—A Fraudulent Automobile Ride—Advice to Young Men—A Corrected Advertisement—The French Quarter and Legendary New Orleans

The next morning was Monday, our last day on the “ocean wave” and “rolling deep,” with all its poetry and pantomime. We were due at New Orleans Tuesday forenoon and were happy in anticipation of soon being back on prosaic land again.

When I awoke I knew that the “norther” was weakening, for the motion of the boat was quite consistent with an elaborate toilet, and produced no uncomfortable sensations. In fact, the cool, invigorating United States air made all of us feel lively and disposed us to object to coffee and jam sandwiches as a substitute for something to eat.

Everybody was well and on deck except Doctor Waite, who had a headache. When I had about completed my elaborate toilet (which consisted not of any extra finery, but rather of an elaboration and deliberation in the adjustment of the same old weather-worn and salted-down garments), I opened my stateroom door just in time to be in at the finish of an interesting sick headache. Doctor Waite had sent for Doctor Hughes, one of those prescribing neurologists who place their confidence in medicine rather than in their Maker, who pursue their cases to death, and dose them until they die. He wore a gentle, white-haired, sugar-cure expression on his face, and suggested an overflowing fountain of professional kindness in the tones of his voice. But he was giving her one of those old-fashioned bitter draughts such as only neurologists know how to compound—not harmful but worse, and which depend largely upon their taste to cure the patient of all further desire for diseases or drugs. She, womanlike, swallowed the dose as if it had been the gospel. It was hardly down, however, before it returned as if from a volcano, and threatening to carry away the crown of her head. She was frightened at the suddenness and intensity of the paroxysm and disgusted by the terrible taste, or she would have noticed the immediate relief that followed. In her sudden fright she exclaimed:

“Oh, Doctor, you’ve killed me; you’ve killed me. Ugh! This is terrible.”

“Madam!” said Doctor Hughes in his soft and gentle way, “you misjudge me. I may be a killing man but I’m not a killing doctor. Ahem!”

Doctor Waite had to laugh at him; and her headache passed off. She expressed a determination, however, not to have another until she was safe at home.

At the breakfast table one of the doctors, whose identity I will not betray, read the following poem:

Low she lay with aching head,

Mingling moan with smothered sigh.

“Dose her,” all the doctors said;

“Dose her, Hughes, or she will die.”

Dosed her with his deadly stuff

Till she groaned, “My end is nigh.”

Then the doctors said, “Enough!

Make her laugh, Hughes, or she’ll cry.”

“I’m a killing man,” he coughed,

“But no killing doctor—see?”

She forgot the dose, and laughed.

She was cured, and it was he.

Hughes-dee-dum and Hughes-dee-dee.

We had hardly finished criticising the impropriety of thus making public the privacy of the sick-chamber when we were startled by a hilarious hullabaloo outside, a strident inharmony of jubilant vocal sounds emulating and imitating the cadence of song. We looked toward the port-hole windows, and there stood Fasting Frank and Heavenly Hughes leaning on their elbows and smiling like cherubs, and singing popular songs at the top of their voices. I blushed at the undignity of it. Doctors! Professors! Fathers! I felt embarrassed. They would not have done it before their families and patients. But I was glad to see them, for I knew that if Doctor Frank had come out of his hole in the wall fair weather and a calm sea had come in earnest. The greeting we gave him was vociferous and as undignified as his behavior. His seasickness had been a premeditated means of increasing his popularity without exerting himself. He had fasted himself into favor. To see him smile like a child, and then howl like a Dervish after a five-days’ fast and close confinement, made us regard him as a suffering hero who no longer suffered, although anyone who couldn’t eat could do the same.

We persuaded him to come in to “coffee,” although he declared that it was against his principles to eat or drink at sea. He wasn’t ready to be tempted yet.

“Tut, tut!” I said, “A cup of coffee and half a roll can not upset you, now that the storm is over.”

“Half a roll, man!” he cried. “Do you know what it is to eat half a roll after a five-days’ fast? Half a roll! Do you know how good it feels to fill up a complete and perfect vacuum in you when you get started? Do you know how good it feels to have your stomach full of solid greasy food after it has been digesting itself for a week?”

“Do I know?” said I. “It is the man who denies himself that knows the joys of indulgence. To habitually suffer from prolonged and painful hunger before each meal, and always stop when you have taken a few mouthfuls and your appetite is at its fiery zenith, is the best training for the mad enjoyment of a full and filling meal that I know of; and I know of it. You are young yet. Wait until you get the gout and you’ll be thankful for half a roll. You’re not rich enough to appreciate half of a dry roll. Your time is coming.”

“Why, you’re just the man I am seeking,” he exclaimed. “I am hunting for a fellow who is as starved as I am and as you look. When we get to New Orleans to-morrow morning, we will have an oyster supper, postponed from to-night; at noon we’ll have an oyster supper for lunch, and before we take the night train to Chicago we will have another oyster supper. Just think of it, if we were not thirty-six hours late we would have the three suppers in us now.”

“Doctor Frank,” I said, “you are going to make yourself sick in earnest, for on land you will not have seasickness to cure and curb you of your overeating. I will eat these three suppers with you and get my stomach full for once—and then swear off forever.”

Here Doctor Morrow interrupted me. “Full for once? Full forever, you mean! You have only been full once since we left Bocas—you have kept at that sherry between meals and claret at meals——”

“Doctor Morrow, I refer to food—food only. On dry land I drink neither sherry nor claret, only water at different temperatures and dilutions. I am glad to say that I am not as you are. I do not intend to harden my arteries and bring on premature arteriosclerosis by overeating. You eat twice as much as you ought to eat every day of your life, except when you are ‘off your food,’ as the result of it, and when nature evens up by forcing you to fast. I intend to curb my appetite. To make use of a paradox, I might say that I am going to starve myself to a good old age.”

“You’ve done it already.”

“Look here, Morrow, you’re a great man, thanks to your appetite. But beware! A man is also as old as his appetite makes him. You’ll die of old age by the time you are forty. If I had your appetite I’d have been dead ten years ago. You are the most unpromising insurance risk here except Doctor Newman, who was never made to be an old man and knows it, and who can thus eat himself to death with impunity. There is hope for the others. Doctor Frank fasts occasionally, and thus postpones the day of reckoning. Doctor Senn is smoked through and through, and smoked bodies undergo no farther change or decay. Doctor Brower is water-soaked, and water-soaked timber sometimes lasts a long time. Doctor Hughes and I are drying up, and when we are thoroughly dried we will last longer than any of you.”

“How about me?” asked Doctor Waite.

“I cannot pass upon your case, for the nourishing and keeping qualities of eggs are uncertain. In a cold climate you might live quite a long time.”

While I was talking, all had left the dining-room except Doctor Waite, who arose to follow them. I knew that she was exceedingly conscientious and truthful, and I determined to ask her a question about a matter which was troubling my conscience.

“Doctor Waite, you have asked me a question; may I ask you an equally important one in return?”

“Why, certainly, Doctor, and I shall try and be as frank as you were when I asked mine.”

“I merely wish to ask you if you have noticed anything wrong about me?”

She said she had noticed that I had been in a critical state of mind ever since we left Colón.

“In a critical state? Is that so? Am I as bad off as that?”

“You have raked us over the coals pretty badly.”

“Is that so? I often do things badly. I’ll try and do it better hereafter. But have I been acting out of the ordinary? Has my articulation been distinct? I sometimes talk without listening to myself, and——”

“And so do not always know what you are saying,” she said with a little laugh. “Well, if I must speak out I should say that you are talking somewhat unintelligibly now. I hadn’t paid enough attention before to notice it.”

“Well, I feel very much obliged to you for not noticing it. There is no harm in talking unintelligibly when you are not noticed. I wish I knew whether I have been enjoying myself or not. Having a good time is much more unsatisfactory when you don’t know it. At home I have a good time working hard, but I know it; on this voyage I have worked much harder at having a good time, and didn’t know I had it. At home I shall work off this tired feeling. In fact, I should have explained before——”

“Never explain anything to a woman, Doctor. Explanations and arguments never convince us. We are apt to take them as jokes to be laughed at.”

“Well, women are right. They laugh much more effectually than they reason. To laugh at us is one of woman’s rights. And we laugh with them to show that we approve of woman’s rights. But I merely wanted to get an honest professional opinion, and didn’t know how. They are so hard to find. I have been calculating how much alcoholic liquor I have consumed since landing at Colón a little over two weeks ago. I have drunk half a pint of whiskey, two quart bottles of beer, three quart bottles of wine and a quart of soft drinks. Think of the mixture! I have kept on drinking regularly and have not, to my knowledge, been intoxicated. I have felt well during the whole time until now, but now I’m beginning to feel bad. What I want to know is whether I have been irresponsible during the whole time and am just beginning to clear up, or whether I have been sober the whole of the time and am just beginning to feel the effects of all I have taken.”

She again laughed three or four notes as she answered:

“Well, there has certainly been something unusual about you, but whether it was due to the disturbance of the liquid in the sea or in the bottles I will not attempt to decide. In the first place, I never saw you so critical in Chicago as you have been on board. In the second place, you have been offering and recommending wine to ladies, which you never do in Chicago. In the third place, you have criticised my eating, which no other gentleman has done.”

“Thank you,” I said. “I’ll do it as a doctor hereafter, not as a gentleman. As a return favor I will ask of you not to speak of my condition to any one in Chicago. I suppose the delegates all know of it. But I’ll shut their mouths; I’ll treat them in New Orleans, etc.”

“But, Doctor, they would refuse to take treatment. They will not be sick on dry land. Sherry will be superfluous there.”

She finally got away from me and my questions, and went to prepare egg-nogs for the convalescing ladies. She beats the world making egg-nogs—for ladies. Men don’t like them.

Later we held a business meeting of the passengers in the dining-room in order to give substantial expression of our gratitude to the gentlemanly crew of the S. S. Brighton for our rescue from the reefs in the lagoon of Chiriqui on a dark and rainy night; also to the captain who had so successfully stood the trial of his first trip as a commander and had consulted the heavens so diligently for us, predicting stormy weather with unerring accuracy. We feared that the adventure of the reefs might be used by his enemies and the United Fruit Company as an excuse for depriving him of his command of the smallest, most rickety and most sure-to-go-down boat of the line.

We also took up a subscription which netted each man of the crew a dollar for having risked his life for us when the boat struck and stuck on the bottom where it really belonged.

We then drew up the following resolutions in honor of the captain, to be presented by him to the United Fruit Company. We made them strong and striking in order that they might not be put aside unnoticed:

“Whereas, the S. S. Brighton did, between the night of Jan. 10 and the morning of Jan. 11, 1905, come to rest on a reef in Chiriqui Lagoon, and thus imperil the lives of her passengers and the reputation of her captain;

“Whereas, the S. S. Brighton was not made for man but for bananas;

“Whereas, in a time of danger, when the moon and stars failed and darkness prevailed, when the passengers were suffering from the fear of death and the feeling of nausea, the captain was cool and collected and waited in patience until the sun arose and the cock crew and the ship forced its way backward into deep water;

“Whereas, we deliberately and of our own free will, chose the said Brighton, and were, thus responsible for our mistake, and the company of its own free will chose the captain and is thus responsible for his mistakes;

“Whereas, we should not have been caught out at night in the absence of the heavenly bodies, or of the phosphorescence of the waves, or of the fireflies of the beach to indicate to the negro pilot where we were at;

“Therefore, be it resolved that we, the benighted and bereeft passengers of the S. S. Brighton, do hereby express and extend our thanks to the captain and the ship for successfully getting us off the bottom and out of danger;

“Resolved, that we assume the blame for the accident in that we added weight to the ship and worry to the captain;

“Resolved, that we promise nevermore to put this responsibility upon the ship, but will stay at home and attend to our own affairs;

“Resolved, that we beg clemency and favor for the gallant captain, and that he be given a pilot who can see in the dark;

“Finally, we, the survivors of the last but not least eventful voyage of the S. S. Brighton, do petition that the ship be enlarged as fast as possible, that basins be attached to the pillow-ends of the bunks, that the allowance of wash water be doubled, that the electric lights be not put out at midnight, that evaporated cream be provided for coffee instead of condensed milk, and that bananas and bric-a-brac hereafter be carried to the exclusion of passengers.

“Signed.”

There was a prolonged discussion as to whether we should all sign these resolutions individually or whether merely the president, Doctor Brower, and the secretary of the meeting, Doctor Morrow, should sign officially. The secretary was finally forced to sign them alone.

We were to arrive at the jetties at 10 P. M. according to the captain’s consultations with the heavenly bodies. Now if the captain had any shortcomings it was not a lack of devotion to the heavenly bodies, which he consulted frequently and fervently. But he never succeeded in fixing correctly the time of arrival anywhere. It was I who had faith in the heavenly bodies, yet never consulted them, who could prophesy unerringly. Whenever the captain announced the time I added two hours. So when we were told that we would arrive at the jetties at 10 P. M., I knew that we would arrive at midnight.

About half of the passengers had never seen the jetties, for on their trip to Panama they had passed out of the river after bedtime. And now that they were to enter the river after dark they were inconsolable. Next to Panama they desired to see the jetties, about which they had heard and read so much. They asked all sorts of questions about them; what jetties meant, what Eads meant, what jetties and Eads looked like.

The sun sank in Oriental splendor behind his green and golden bedcurtains as we went to dinner, and the unfortunates complained of the sun for setting before we got to the Eads and jetties. They blamed the captain for not having sailed faster during the storm in order to arrive before sundown. They were not content with having escaped the dangers of the reef, as well as having kept the rudder and saved the screw and crew during the storm. With them the jetties were the thing, the dangers passed were nothing. Who cares for dangers that are passed? They wished that they had waited for the Preston, or that the Brighton would anchor outside all night.

We told them that they could sit up and see the lights, and so could tell everybody that they had seen the Eads and jetties.

As they kept on asking what the Eads and jetties looked like, they received various answers. Some said they looked like lighthouses on piers; others that they were like Greek temples covered with electric lights; others said that they were nude figures of lions bearing immense candelabra on their heads and electric lights on their tails; others said that they were a narrow channel running out at sea—mere longitudinal space. When we got through answering them they were discouraged, for they would not be able to describe the Eads and jetties to their friends at home.

They, of course, took the captain’s word that we would pass the jetties at 10 P. M. and paid no attention to my assurance that we would pass them at midnight. At ten o’clock they were gaping and shivering on deck like tired ghosts on a moonless night, and wished they had gone to bed. By eleven it was evident that I had told them the truth about the time of passing the jetties, so they placed a sentinel to watch the Eads and jetties and report what he saw, that they might describe them to their friends.

I enjoyed making my toilet the following morning as I had not for a long time. To be able to stand still and stretch both arms above my head leisurely and without danger of falling; to be able to gape without having a tooth knocked loose by an approaching shelf or edge of a bunk; to be able to get the right foot in the right trouser leg at the first attempt; to be able, while washing, to stoop down without a head-on dive; to find both shoes on the same side of the room, and my clothes hanging on the nail just as I had hung them: these were luxuries that made me forget my previous misery. Reaction from misery is, after all, the best substitute for happiness. Real happiness is too rare and impalpable, and is enjoyed in the past and future only.

Doctor Senn and I each had one hook upon which to hang our overcoats, heavy suits, belts, hats and the garments we removed at night. And I was glad that there had been no occupant of the sofa bunk to share these two hooks with us, for there would then have been no alternative but to throw our city clothes overboard where they would have been better preserved. I never knew to how much use one hook could be put until we tested the possibilities on the Brighton; nor did I realize the condition clothes could get into from hanging in a bunch upon one nail for a week.

At “coffee” I found the whole company. Those who had sat up and shivered while watching for the “Eads” and jetties looked hollow-eyed. The vigilants had retired at eleven o’clock, but had lain awake a long time with disappointment and cold feet, and had arisen early, famished and unrefreshed, and had shivered and shifted about cold corners and corridors for a couple of hours waiting for lukewarm coffee and jam to start the depressed circulation through their congealed capillaries.

Although it was a cold January day and ice had formed during the night, the river looked beautiful in the morning sunlight as we came nearer to New Orleans. Doctor Waite was even more enthusiastic in her appreciation than were the ladies who were not doctors, a thing which I could not understand. I always had supposed that a busy surgical life would take nearly all of the womanly out of a person. I had often observed such an effect upon others as well as upon myself.

When we arrived off the docks of the United Fruit Company the first thing we noticed was the S. S. Preston, the large boat that had not arrived at Colón when we left, and for which we did not wait because we wanted to save time and avoid the crowd. We expected the delegates to return in it en masse and crowd it until it would become more uncomfortable than the smaller, unpopular boat, the Brighton, that detestable little, breakdown little, slow poke of a rat-trap which no one was supposed to take, but which nearly every one did take. The Preston had sailed from Colón two days later than the Brighton and had arrived at New Orleans two days earlier. On a scheduled five-days’ trip she had beaten us by four days. She had provided a stateroom for each passenger or married couple, had not struck a reef, and had only broken one sailor’s leg—which didn’t signify as Doctor Palmer was there to set it immediately. She had kept her screw in the water and her deck out of the water, and thus had allowed passengers to eat, sleep and wear dry clothes. Some of us felt like blowing up the Brighton and the United Fruit Company, one with dynamite and the other with damning it.

We arrived at the docks in time for me to take the morning train for Chicago and thus escape Doctor Frank and his three deadly oyster suppers. But the suspicions of Uncle Sam had to be allayed, and before we had signed papers and suffered the conventional derangement of our baggage and bric-a-brac, the train had gone and I was doomed to eat oysters and drink gin fizz and absinthe with a starved man. It is not pleasant, after you have eaten more than you want, to sit half an hour or so and watch a starved man giving way to the eager ecstasy of slowly oncoming repletion. It seems to be the uppermost desire of every one upon arriving at New Orleans to eat a dish of oysters. In fact, it is remarkable what an amount of enjoyment the human being gets out of what it puts into its stomach, forgetting that an organ which affords such universal and almost continuous enjoyment deserves, like Hamlet’s “Players,” to be well used.

After satisfying our curiosity by taking a silver fizz, a drink which had made a reputation for a certain saloon in New Orleans, Doctors Frank and Newman and I had our eleven o’clock breakfast (the postponed oyster supper) at a French restaurant near the St. Charles. I myself could only eat half a dozen of those large and luscious oysters, but I will not destroy the reader’s good opinion, if he have one, of my comrades by telling how many they ate. However, we finally stopped eating, promising ourselves other oyster meals before the time for the evening trains to depart, and went to a saloon in the French quarter to increase our knowledge by taking a drink of the absinthe that had made New Orleans and this saloon famous for twenty years. I swallowed my dose and pretended that it was good. Absinthe makes people lie. It is the essence of seasickness and mendacity, and good only for those who, like horses, can’t get sick at the stomach and can’t tell the truth. When I have an enemy I will treat him to absinthe, but I will not drink it with him. Doctor Frank liked it on account of its reputation, just as his patients like him. Doctor Newman looked at his emptied glass and grunted, then rolled his head solemnly from side to side and opened his mouth as if he were going to say something important; but nothing came out.

In the afternoon after all hands had had their oyster lunches, we were attracted by the “sight-seeing auto” standing in front of the St. Charles. Circulars were scattered about, advertising “Two delightful tours daily and Sunday, leaving St. Charles Hotel daily at 10 A. M. and 2 P. M.” I have thought it worth while to print a copy of the advertised description of the tour in order to show the reader how quackery flourishes and is respected in business life as well as in professional. I formerly supposed that the medical, legal and sporting professions were the only ones which could successfully impose their frauds upon the public, but I am now hunting for the only profession or business that does not. I would advise all young men to divide the business public into two classes, viz., enemies and friends. The former will want his money to enrich themselves at his expense; the latter will solicit it to ruin both him and themselves—but him at any rate. Above all he should beware of the latter, that his money may not ruin both.

DESCRIPTION OF TOUR

THE largest automobile in the world takes its way through the modern business and residential sections of New Orleans as well as that most mystical and picturesque part known as the “French Quarter.” Here every square has its realistic or legendary lore and here will be seen the descendants of the French and Spanish noblesse and that peculiar type of American civilization—the creole of Louisiana.

Below are given a

FEW ATTRACTIONS OF THIS TOUR

St. Charles Hotel.	Statue of Benjamin Franklin.
A Ride Along the Great Levees.	Statue of John McDonough.
Canal Street.	Beautiful St. Charles Avenue.
Steamboat Landing.	First Presbyterian Church.
The Custom House and Post Office (Corner stone laid by Henry Clay).	Home of the Famous “Sazerac Cocktail.”
Liberty Monument.	Old French Market.
Building costing $4,000,000.00.	House where Gen. Lafayette was entertained.
Lafayette Square.	Old Basin.
Henry Clay Monument.	Carondelet Canal.
Mississippi River Packets.	Most Ancient Cemetery in New Orleans.
Algiers.	Monument to Gen. Jackson.
Immense Sugar Refinery.	Bourbon Street.
Jackson Square.	First Church to be built in Louisiana.
Former “Plantations of the King.”	Building in which transfer of Louisiana Purchase was made to U. S.
Place d’Armes.	Old Antique Shops.
Royal Street.	Ancient Court House.
City Hall (1850).	Old Cabildo—house of Spanish, French and American Governments.
New Court House and Jail.	St. Louis Cathedral (first built in 1718).
Orpheum Theater.	Famous French Opera House.
Y. M. C. A. Building.	Old St. Louis Hotel (now Hotel Royal).
First Sugar Refinery in Louisiana (1794).	Tulane and Crescent Theatres.
Statue of Gen. Robert E. Lee.	Cotton Exchange.
Lee Circle.	Boston Club.
St. Louis Cemetery No. 1.	Chess, Checker and Whist Club.
St. Louis Cemetery No. 2.	Pickwick Club.
St. Louis Cemetery No. 3.	Building in which Mardi Gras Balls are held.

THE famous auto passes these and many more points of interest, traversing the historic byways and grand boulevards of this quaint old city. An expert guide accompanies each tour and points out each interesting feature and tells of the past grandeur and romance and the future greatness of New Orleans.

ONE DOLLAR—THE ROUND TRIP

Leave St. Charles Hotel

Seats Reserved in Advance. Telephone, St. Charles Hotel News Stand.
Main 1600

There was a fifty-cent touring auto that started once a day from the corner of Canal and St. Charles Street, but the best was none too good for us (as the sequel proved) and we chose the dollar tour because the price was higher and the advertising circulars more numerous.

The description should have commenced thus:

“The largest and most old-fashioned and used-up automobile takes its way at a snail’s pace through the modern business and residential sections of New Orleans as well as that most delusive and dilapidated part known as the “French quarter.” Here every square inch has its realistic or legendary lore of which our guide knows not a thing and says not a word—therefore don’t bother him with questions. And here will be seen the descendants and decadents of the French and Spanish noblesse—and great has been the descent—and that peculiar type of American civilization, the creole of Louisiana. All of these things and many more will not be pointed out to you.

“The infamous auto passes by these and many more points of no more interest, traversing the historic byways and grand boulevards of this grand old city. A pert guy accompanies each tour and puts out each interesting feature, and says nothing about the present, and knows nothing about the past grandeur and romance, and the future greatness of New Orleans.”

If the company will change the circular to read as I have corrected it, I will recommend it as an honest one trying to live up to its advertisement. Otherwise I must condemn it as a corrupt Philadelphia company, a buyer of cast-off automobiles and off-caste young men, which are sent to far-off cities to play tricks upon visitors. The company runs automobiles in Washington and Philadelphia as well, and sends uninstructed strangers to act as guys and guides. They depend for their success upon the reputation of some of the well-conducted tours in other cities, notably Chicago. They avoid trouble by collecting the fares before they start.

On our way through the French quarter Doctor Frank tried in vain to get a single word from the guy about “the past grandeur and romance” or the “legendary lore,” or about the history of the places. The guy had never studied history nor read the newspapers, and had not even learned to speak a little piece about either history, legend, romance or “rot.” He could not even tell a lie. He pointed his finger at a few business houses, pronounced the names of clubs, and showed us the charred walls of a club house that had been burned the day before, and pronounced it the latest thing in ruins. He showed us the house of a rich man, and when we came to the oldest Protestant church he stood up and said, “This is the First Presbyterian Church,” and sat down. When we got back he also showed us the New St. Charles Hotel, and we knew at least that he was giving this last “attraction” its right name.

Should any reader doubt the truth of my words let him ask Dr. J. Frank of Chicago, whose stomach was full after his five days of fasting, and who therefore felt in a mood to be pleased with anything half-way entertaining or reasonable. He will say that I have not told the truth, but only a portion of it, and he will probably complete the recitation of the truth and give it some of the color that belongs to it. He was anxious to learn something about the town, but learned nothing. He would even have been glad to tell the guy a thing or two about historic and legendary New Orleans, or to give him a piece of his mind, if the fellow had been capable of appreciating either thing, or anything. The fellow didn’t know what he saw and probably would not have understood what he heard. Anyway he did not care to see or hear. He was satisfied with himself and his salary, and we had not the heart to interfere with his happiness, as he had with ours.[5]

[5] In justice to the local Manhattan Auto-Car Co., whose office is at 211 St. Charles St., I wish to say that I was again in New Orleans in December 1907, and had a satisfactory ride in one of their vehicles. Our guide, whose name was Ryniger, was as lively and full of information as the one described above was stupid and ignorant. Those who take the trip should select his car.