them out to make them regorge that was out of the question. Landlords and policemen seemed to take it quite as a matter of course that the stranger in New York is thus to be done. Since then I have hardly spoken to a Yankee, nor has a Yankee spoken to me. I now understand why the Yankees are so reserved, and never seem to speak to each other. They know each other too well. I now understand also how the men you meet look so thin and careworn, and can’t sleep at nights. We are not all saints in London. Chicago boasts that it is the wickedest city in the world, but I question whether New York may not advance a stronger claim to the title. Yet what an Imperial city is New York! How endless is its restless life! and how it runs over with the lust of the flesh, the lust of the eye, and worldly pride! As I wandered to the spot in Wall Street (where, by the bye, the stockbrokers and their clerks are not in appearance to be compared to our own) I felt, sad as I was, a thrill of pleasure run through me, as there Washington took the oath as the first President of the young and then pure Republic; and then, as the evening came on, I strolled up and down in the park-like squares by means of which New York looks like a fairy world by night, with the people sitting under the shade of the trees, resting after the labours of the day; while afar the gay
crowds are dining or supping at Delmonico’s, or wandering in and out of the great hotels which rear their heads like palaces—as I looked at all that show and splendour (and in London we have nothing to compare with it), one seemed to forget how evanescent was that splendour, how unreal that show! I was reminded of it, however, as I retired to rest, by the announcement that in one part of my hotel was the way to the fire-escape, and by the notice in my bedroom that the proprietor would not be responsible for my boots if I put them outside the door to be blackened. In New York there seems to be no confidence in anybody or anything.
As I told my story to a sweet young American lady she said, “Ah, you must have felt very mean.” “Not a bit of it,” said I; “the meanness seemed to be all on the other side.” Americans talk English, so they tell me, better than we do ourselves! Since then I have seen the same game played elsewhere. In Australia I have heard of many a poor emigrant robbed in this way. A plausible looking gentleman tried it on with me at Melbourne when I was tramping up and down Burke Street one frying afternoon. He had come with me, he said, by the steamer from Sydney to Melbourne. I really thought I had met him at Brisbane. At any rate, his wife was ill, and he was going back with her to London by the very steamer
that I was travelling by to Adelaide. Would I come with him as far as the Club? Of course I said yes. The Melbourne Club is rather a first-class affair. But somehow or other we did not get as far as the Club. My friend wanted to call on a friend in a public-house on the way. Would I have a drink? No, I was much obliged, but I did not want a drink. I sat down smoking, and he came and sat beside me. Presently a decent-looking man came up to my new friend with a bill. “Can’t you wait till to-morrow?” asked my friend. “Well, I am rather pressed for money,” said the man, respectfully. “Oh, then, here it is,” said my friend, pulling a heap of gold, or what looked like it, out of his pocket. “By the bye,” said he, turning to me, “I am a sovereign short; can you lend me one?” No, I could not. Could I lend him half-a-sovereign? No; I could not. Could I lend him five shillings? I had not even that insignificant sum to spare. “Oh, it does not matter,” said my friend; “I can get the money over the way, I will just go and fetch it, and will be back in five minutes.” And he and his confederate went away together to be seen no more by me. Certainly he was not on board the Austral, as I took my passage in her to Adelaide.
As I left I met a policeman.
“Have you any rogues in these parts?” I innocently asked.
“Well, we have a few. There was one from New York a little while ago, but he had to go back home. He said he was no match for our Melbourne rogues at all.” It was well that I escaped scot-free. On the steamer in which I returned there was a poor third-class passenger who had lost his all in such a way. He was fool enough to let the man treat him to a drink, and that little drink proved rather a costly affair. All his hard-earned savings had disappeared.
CHAPTER XVI.
Interviewing the President.
It is about time, I wrote one day in America, I set my face homeward. When on the prairie I was beginning to speculate whether I should ever be fit to make an appearance in descent society again. Now, it seems to me, the question to be asked is, Whether I have not soared so high in the world as to have lost all taste for the frugal simplicity of that home life, where, in the touching words of an American poet I met with this morning, it is to be trusted my
Daughters are acting day by day,
So as not to bring disgrace on their papa far away.