"It is a hell," said the policeman—satisfied, by my frank manner, that I spoke the truth.
"God bless me,—a what! I could not have heard you rightly?"
"A hell; a gambling-house!"
"Oh!" and I moved on. Could Captain Roland, the rigid, the thrifty, the penurious, be a gambler? The light broke on me at once; the unhappy father sought his son! I leant against the post, and tried hard not to sob.
By-and-by, I heard the door open: the Captain came out and took the way homeward. I ran on before, and got in first, to the inexpressible relief both of father and mother, who had not seen me since breakfast, and who were in equal consternation at my absence. I submitted to be scolded with a good grace. "I had been sight-seeing, and lost my way;" begged for some supper, and slunk to bed; and five minutes afterwards the Captain's jaded step came wearily up the stairs.
MODERN TOURISM.
The merits of the railroad and the steam-boat have been prodigiously vaunted, and we have no desire to depreciate the advantages of either. No doubt they carry us from town to town with greater rapidity than our fathers ever dreamt of; and instead of the "High-flyer coach, averaging ten miles an hour," whirl us over fifty. No doubt they are convenient for the viator who desires to reach America in a fortnight, or for the Queen's messenger who must be in Paris within the next twelve hours. No doubt they are first-rate inventions for an elopement, a fugitive debtor, or a banished king. But, they have afflicted our generation with one desperate evil; they have covered Europe with Tourists, all pen in hand, all determined not to let a henroost remain undescribed, all portfolioed, all handbooked, all "getting up a Journal," and all pouring their busy nothings on the "reading public," without compassion or conscience, at the beginning of the "season."