And call the fays to their revelry.”
CHAPTER XV.
John at Saratoga.
WE reached Albany at five o’clock, and I stepped ashore and walked carelessly up the street, trying to look as though I had been there before. I don’t think I succeeded. It is the most difficult thing in the world to step off a boat or train in a strange city, and not fancy that at least half the assembled spectators are looking at you and saying:
“There’s a fellow who never was here before: that’s clear.”
I went up to an hotel, gave my check to the porter and told him to bring my baggage from the boat. I have hitherto forborne to give the names of hotels, because it might look like surreptitious advertising; and John Smith is above that sort of thing. But, it might be urged, why not mention the names of the good hotels, that travelers who read this work may know where to stay when they visit such cities as I mention? One reason is, this is no traveler’s guide; and another is, that an hotel that was comfortable and well-conducted two or three years ago, may have changed proprietors, and become quite the reverse by this time. I have seen this demonstrated myself, as I may have occasion to mention in the course of this work.
I remained at Albany a week, during which time I visited the penitentiary—only as a visitor, remember—and other places of interest. I also visited Troy, six miles above, on the east side of the river, and some of its manufactories. At a nail and horseshoe factory there I saw the largest wheel in this country. It is a monstrous water-wheel, which runs the machinery of the whole establishment. I was told that its diameter was seventy-four feet. It was in operation while I was there; it revolved rather slowly, and looked like the world turning around on a cloudy day. At Troy I also saw a Trojan horse; though not the one Homer tells about.
Before going westward, I paid a visit to Saratoga Springs, the great fashionable summer resort, which is about thirty miles from Albany. Do not infer that I went there to spend the fashionable “season.” I am above such a place as that. So is any one that hasn’t too much money. It is there that glittering wealth and giddy fashion congregate during the hot weather, and that merchants from New York and other cities go to gamble away in a week—sometimes in a single night—all they have made in a year.
“Faro” prevails there to an alarming extent. So do poker, roulette, billiards, nine-pins and horse-racing. I stood by a faro-table for an hour, and the amount of cash I saw change hands in that time was something frightful. Thousands seemed but a trifle at that board. I saw one gentleman looking on with idle interest, while others were betting, losing and winning, and I said to myself, “That fellow is going to try his luck: I can tell by the way he looks.”
And he did try it.
“I’ll put that V on the ace,” said he, laying down a five-dollar greenback.