CHAPTER XV.

HOW I WAS MADE A FOOL OF.

At length I am in the home of the free, where all men are equal, where O'Donovan Rossa may seek to blast the glories of a thousand years, where a Henry George may pave the way for an anarchy such as the world has never yet seen, where even Jem Blaine, as his admirers term him, passes for an honest man, and claims to have a firm grip on the Presidential chair.

I am unfortunate on my landing. I have the name of one of Cook's hotels on my lips, and as I know Mr. John Cook makes better terms for his customers than they can do for themselves, I resolve to go there, but every one tells me there is no such hotel as that I ask for in New York, and I am taken to one which is recommended by a respectable-looking policeman. Unfortunately, it is the head-quarters of the veteran corps of the Army of the Potomac, who swarm all over the place, as they did all over the South in the grand times of old. I am not fond of heroes; heroes are the men who have kept out of danger, while their less fortunate comrades have been mowed down, and who appropriate the honours which belong often to the departed alone. Well, these heroes are holding the fort so tightly that I resolve to leave my quarters and explore the Broadway, one of the most picturesque promenades in the world. Suddenly I meet a stranger, who asks me how I am. I reply he has the advantage of me. "Oh," says he, "you were at our store last night." I reply that was impossible. He tells me his name is Bodger, I tell him my name, which, however, he does not catch, whereupon he shakes my hand again, says how happy he is to have met me, and we part to meet no more. I go a few steps farther, and go through the same process with another individual. I bear his congratulations with fortitude, but when, a few minutes after, the same thing occurs again, I begin to wish I were in Hanover rather than in New York, and I resolve to seek out Cook's Agency without further delay. Of course I was directed wrong, and that led to a disaster which will necessarily shorten my visit to Uncle Sam. Perhaps I ought not to tell my experience. People generally are silent when they have to tell anything to their own discredit. If I violate that rule, it will be to put people on their guard. If I am wrong in doing so, I hope the rigid moralist will skip this altogether.

Suddenly, a young man came rushing up to me, with a face beaming with joy. "Good morning, Mr. ---," he exclaimed; "I am so glad we have met." I intimated that I did not recollect him. "Oh!" said he, "we came over in the _Sarnia_ together." Well, the story was not improbable. Of the 1,000 on board the _Sarnia_ I could not be expected to remember all. "My name is G.," mentioning a well-known banker in London, and then he began to tell me of his travels, at what hotel he was staying, and finally added that he had been presented with a couple of Longfellow's _Poems_, handsomely bound, as a prize, and that he would be glad if I would accept one. Well, as my copy of Longfellow was rather the worse for wear, I told him I would accept it with pleasure. But I must come with him for it. I did so, and while doing so learned from him that the prize had been given in connection with a lottery scheme for raising money to build a church down South. The idea seemed to me odd, but Brother Jonathan's ways are not as ours, and I was rather pleased to find that I had thus a new chance of seeing religious life, and of having something fresh to write about. I am free to confess, as the great Brougham was wont to say, I jumped at the offer. In a few minutes we were inside a respectable-looking house, where a tall gentleman invited us to be seated, regretting that the copies of Longfellow had not come home from the binder's, and promising that we should have them by noon. Next he unfolded what I thought was a plan of the proposed church, but which proved to be a chart with figures--with prizes, as it seemed to me, to all the figures. To my horror my friend took up the cards, and asked me to select them for him. This I did, and he won a thousand dollars, blessing me as he shook hands with me warmly, and saying that as I had won half I must have half. Well, as the ticket had certain conditions, and as I felt that it was rather hard on the church to take all that money, I continued the game for a few minutes, my young friend being eager that I should do so, till the truth dawned upon me that I had been drawn into a swindlers' den, and that I and my friend were dupes, and I resolved to leave off playing, much to the regret of my friend, who gave the keeper of the table a cheque for 100 pounds, which he would pay for me, as I would not, and thus by another effort retrieve my loss. There was one spot only on the board marked blank, and that, of course, was his. Burning with indignation I got up to go, my friend following me, saying how much he regretted that he had led me into such a place, offering to pay me half my losses when he returned to town, and begging me not to say a word about the subject when I got back to London, as it might get him into a row. I must say, so great has been my experience of honour among men, and never having been in New York before, I believed in that young man till we parted, as I did not see how he could have gained all the knowledge he displayed of myself and movements unless he had travelled with me as he said, and had never heard of Bunkum men. I had not gone far, however, before I was again shaken by the hand by a gentlemanly young fellow, who claimed to have met me at Montreal, where he had been introduced to me as the son of Sir H--- A---. He had been equally lucky--had got two books, and, as he was going back to Quebec that very afternoon, would give me one of them if I would ride with him as far as his lodgings. Innocently I told him my little tale. He advised me to say nothing about it, as I had been breaking the law and might get myself into trouble, and then suddenly recollecting he must get his ticket registered, and saying that he would overtake me directly, left me to go as far as the place of our appointed rendezvous alone. Then the truth flashed on me that both my pretended friends were rogues, and that I had been the victim of what, in New York, they call the Bunkum men, who got 300 dollars out of Oscar Wilde, and a good deal more out of Mr. Adams, formerly American Ambassador in England. I had never heard of them, I own, and both the rogues had evidently got so much of my history by heart that I might well fancy that they were what they described themselves to be. As to finding 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.