CHAPTER VIII
THE SWEETEST THING IN NATURE
The city, bustling and animated by day, like an energetic housewife, was at night a gay demoiselle, awakening to new life and excitement. The clerk betook himself to his bowling or billiards and the mechanic to the circus, while beauty and fashion repaired to the concert room or to the Opéra Français, to listen to Halévy or Donizetti. Restless Americans or Irishmen rubbed elbows with the hurrying Frenchman or Spaniard, and the dignified creole gentleman of leisure alone was wrapped in a plenitude of dignity, computing probably the interest he drew on money loaned these assiduous foreigners.
Soldiers who had been granted leave of absence or had slipped the guard at the camp on Andrew Jackson’s battle-ground swaggered through the streets. The change from a diet of pork and beans and army hard tack was so marked that Uncle Sam’s young men threw restraint to the winds, took the mask balls by storm and gallantly assailed and made willing prisoners of the fair sex. Eager to exchange their 311 irksome life in camp for the active campaign in Mexico, it was small wonder they relieved their impatience by many a valiant dash into the hospitable town.
Carriages drove by with a rumble and a clatter, revealing a fleeting glimpse of some beauty with full, dark eye. Venders of flowers importuned the passers-by, doing a brisk business; the oyster and coffee stands reminded the spectator of a thoroughfare in London on a Saturday night, with the people congregating about the street stalls; but the brilliantly illumined places of amusement, with their careless patrons plainly apparent to all from without, resembled rather a boulevard scene in the metropolis of France. “Probably,” says a skeptical chronicler, “here and there are quiet drawing-rooms, and tranquil firesides, where domestic love is a chaste, presiding goddess.” But the writer merely presumes such might have been the case, and it is evident from his manner of expression, he offers the suggestion, or afterthought, charitably, with some doubts in his mind. Certainly he never personally encountered the chaste goddess of the hearth, or he would have qualified his words and made his statement more positive.
From the life of the streets, the land baron turned into a well-lighted entrance, passing into a large, luxuriously furnished saloon, at one end of which stood a table somewhat resembling a roulette board. Seated on one side was the phlegmatic cashier, and, opposite him, the dealer, equally impassive. Unlike faro––the popular New Orleans game––no deal box was 312 needed, the dealer holding the cards in his hand, while a cavity in the center of the table contained a basket, where the cards, once used, were thrown. A large chandelier cast a brilliant light upon the scene.
“Messieurs, faites vos jeux,” drawled the monotonous voice of the dealer, and expectation was keenly written on the faces of the double circle of players––variously disclosed, but, nevertheless, apparent in all; a transformation of the natural expression of the features; an obvious nervousness of manner, or where the countenance was impassive, controlled by a strong will, a peculiar glitter of the eyes, betokening the most insatiable species of the gambler. As the dealer began to shuffle together six packs of cards and place them in a row on the table, he called out:
“Nothing more goes, gentlemen!”
The rapidity with which the cashier counted the winnings at a distance and shoved them here and there with the long rake was amazing and bewildering to the novice risking a few gold pieces for the first time on the altar of chance. Sorting the gold pieces in even bunches, the cashier estimated them in a moment; shoved them together; counted an equal amount of fives with his fingers; made a little twirl in the pile on the table; pushed it toward the winning pieces and left them tumbled up together in pleasing confusion.