Robert Michael Ballantyne
Post Haste
Chapter Seven.
Phil Begins Life, and Makes a Friend
Some time after the small tea-party described in our last chapter, Philip Maylands was invested with all the dignity, privileges, and emoluments of an “Out-door Boy Telegraph Messenger” in the General Post-Office. He rejoiced in the conscious independence of one who earns his own livelihood, is a burden to nobody, and has something to spare. He enjoyed the privilege of wearing a grey uniform, of sitting in a comfortable room with a huge fire in the basement of the office, and of walking over a portion of London as the bearer of urgent and no doubt all-important news. He also enjoyed a salary of seven shillings sterling a week, and was further buoyed up with the hope of an increase to eight shillings at the end of a year. His duties, as a rule, began at eight each morning, and averaged nine hours.
We have said that out of his vast income he had something to spare. This, of course, was not much, but owing to the very moderate charge for lodging made by Solomon Flint—with whom and his sister he took up his abode—the sum was sufficient to enable him, after a few months, to send home part of his first year’s earnings to his mother. He did this by means of that most valuable institution of modern days a Post-Office order, which enables one to send small sums of money, at a moderate charge, and with perfect security, not only all over the kingdom, but over the greater part of the known world.
It would have been interesting, had it been possible, to have entered into Phil’s feelings on the occasion of his transacting this first piece of financial business. Being a country-bred boy, he was as bashful about it as if he had been only ten years old. He doubted, first, whether the clerk would believe him in earnest when he should demand the order. Then, when he received the form to fill up, he had considerable hesitation lest he should fill in the blanks erroneously, and when the clerk scanned the slip and frowned, he felt convinced that he had done so.
“You’ve put only Mrs Maylands,” said the clerk.
“Only Mrs Maylands!” thought Phil; “does the man want me to add ‘widow of the Reverend James Maylands, and mother of all the little Maylands?’” but he only said, “Sure, sir, it’s to her I want to send the money.”
“Put down her Christian name;” said the clerk; “order can’t be drawn without it.”
Phil put down the required name, handed over the money, received back the change, inserted the order into a previously prepared letter, posted the same, and walked away from that office as tall as his friend George Aspel—if not taller—in sensation.
Let us now follow our hero to the boy-messengers’ room in the basement of St. Martin’s-le-Grand.
Entering one morning after the delivery of a telegram which had cost him a pretty long walk, Phil proceeded to the boys’ hall, and took his seat at the end of the row of boys who were awaiting their turn to be called for mercurial duty. Observing a very small telegraph-boy in a scullery off the hall, engaged in some mysterious operations with a large saucepan, from which volumes of steam proceeded, he went towards him. By that time Phil had become pretty well acquainted with the faces of his comrades, but this boy he had not previously met with. The lad was stooping over a sink, and carefully holding in the contents of the pan with its lid, while he strained off the boiling water.
“Sure I’ve not seen you before?” remarked Phil.
The boy turned up a sharp-featured, but handsome and remarkably intelligent face, and, with a quick glance at Phil, said, “Well, now, any man might know you for an Irishman by your impudence, even if you hadn’t the brogue.”
“Why, what do you mean?” asked Phil, with an amused smile.
“Mean!” echoed the boy, with the most refined extract of insolence on his pretty little face; “I mean that small though I am, surely I’m big enough to be seen.”
“Well,” returned Phil, with a laugh, “you know what I mean—that I haven’t seen you before to-day.”
“Then w’y don’t you say what you mean? How d’you suppose a man can understand you unless you speak in plain terms? You won’t do for the GPO if you can’t speak the Queen’s English. We want sharp fellows here, we do. So you’d better go back to Owld Ireland, avic cushla mavourneen—there, put that in your pipe and smoke it.”
Whether it was the distraction of the boy’s mind, or the potent working of his impertinence, we know not, but certain it is that his left hand slipped somehow, and a round ball, with a delicious smell, fell out of the pot. The boy half caught it, and wildly yet cleverly balanced it on the lid, but it would have rolled next moment into the sink, if Phil had not made a dart forward, caught it like a football, and bowled it back into the pot.
“Well done! splendidly done!” cried the boy, setting down his pot. “Arrah! Pat,” he added, mocking Phil’s brogue, and holding out his hand, “you’re a man after my own heart; give me your flipper, and let us swear eternal friendship over this precious goblet.”
Of course Phil cheerfully complied, and the friendship thus auspiciously begun afterwards became strong and lasting. So it is all through the course of life. At every turn we are liable to meet with those who shall thenceforth exercise a powerful influence on our characters, lives, and affections, and on whom our influence shall be strong for good or evil.
“What’s your name?” asked Phil; “mine is Philip Maylands.”
“Mine’s Peter Pax,” answered the small boy, returning to his goblet; “but I’ve no end of aliases—such as Mouse, Monkey, Spider, Snipe, Imp, and Little ’un. Call me what you please, it’s all one to me, so as you don’t call me too late for dinner.”
“And what have you got there, Pax?” asked Phil, referring to the pot.
“A plum-pudding.”
“Do two or three of you share it?”
“Certainly not,” replied the boy.
“What! you don’t mean to say you can eat it all yourself for dinner?”
“The extent of my ability in the disposal of wittles,” answered Pax, “I have never fairly tested. I think I could eat this at one meal, though I ain’t sure, but it’s meant to serve me all day. You see I find a good, solid, well-made plum-pudding, with not too much suet, and a moderate allowance of currants and raisins, an admirable squencher of appetite. It’s portable too, and keeps well. Besides, if I can’t get through with it at supper, it fries up next mornin’ splendidly.—Come, I’ll let you taste a bit, an’ that’s a favour w’ich I wouldn’t grant to every one.”
“No, thank ’ee, Pax. I’m already loaded and primed for the forenoon, but I’ll sit by you while you eat, and chat.”
“You’re welcome,” returned Pax, “only don’t be cheeky, Philip, as I can’t meet you on an equal footing w’en I’m at grub.”
“I’ll be careful, Pax; but don’t call me Philip—call me Phil.”
“I will, Phil; come along, Phil; ‘Come fill up my cup, come fill up my can’—that sort o’ thing you understand, Phil, me darlint?”
There was such a superhuman amount of knowing presumption in the look and air of Pax, as he poked Phil in the ribs and winked, that the latter burst into laughter, in which however he was not joined by his companion, who with the goblet in one hand and the other thrust into his pocket, stood regarding his new friend with a pitiful expression till he recovered, and then led him off to a confabulation which deepened their mutual esteem.
That same evening a gentleman called at the Post-Office, desiring to see Philip Maylands. It turned out to be George Aspel.
“Why, George, what brings you here?” said Phil in surprise.
“I chanced to be in the neighbourhood,” answered Aspel, “and came to ask the address of that little creature who posted my letter the other night. I want to see her. She does not go to your cousin’s, I know, till morning, and I must see her to-night, to make sure that she did post the letter, for, d’you know, I’ve had no reply from Sir James, and I can’t rest until I ascertain whether my letter was posted. Can you tell me where she lives, Phil?”
At that moment Phil was summoned for duty. Giving his friend the address hastily, he left him.
George Aspel passed the front of the General Post-Office on his way to visit Tottie Bones, and, observing a considerable bustle going on there, he stopped to gaze, for George had an inquiring mind. Being fresh from the country, his progress through the streets of London, as may be well understood, was slow. It was also harassing to himself and the public, for when not actually standing entranced in front of shop-windows his irresistible tendency to look in while walking resulted in many collisions and numerous apologies. At the General Post-Office he avoided the stream of human beings by getting under the lee of one of the pillars of the colonnade, whence he could look on undisturbed.
Up to six o’clock letters are received in the letter-box at St. Martin’s-le-Grand for the mails which leave London at eight each evening. The place for receiving book-parcels and newspapers, however, closes half-an-hour sooner. Before five a brass slit in the wall suffices for the public, but within a few minutes of the half-hour the steady run of men and boys towards it is so great that the slit becomes inadequate. A trap-door is therefore opened in the pavement, and a yawning abyss displayed which communicates by an inclined plane with the newspaper regions below. Into this abyss everything is hurled.
When Aspel took up his position people were hurrying towards the hole, some with single book-parcels, or a few newspapers, others with armfuls, and many with sackfuls. In a few minutes the rapid walk became a run. Men, boys, and girls sprang up the steps—occasionally tumbled up,—jostled each other in their eager haste, and tossed, dropped, hurled, or poured their contributions into the receptacle, which was at last fed so hastily that it choked once or twice, and a policeman, assisted by an official, stuffed the literary matter down its throat—with difficulty, however, owing to the ever-increasing stream of contributors to the feast. The trap-door, when open, formed a barrier to the hole, which prevented the too eager public from being posted headlong with their papers. One youth staggered up the steps under a sack so large that he could scarcely lift it over the edge of the barrier without the policeman’s aid. Him Aspel questioned, as he was leaving with the empty sack, and found that he was the porter of one of the large publishing firms of the city.
Others he found came from advertising agents with sacks of circulars, etcetera.
Soon the minutes were reduced to seconds, and the work became proportionally fast and furious; sacks, baskets, hampers, trays of material were emptied violently into that insatiable maw, and in some cases the sacks went in along with their contents. But owners’ names being on these, they were recoverable elsewhere.
Suddenly, yet slowly, the opening closed. The monster was satisfied for that time; it would not swallow another morsel, and one or two unfortunates who came late with large bags of newspapers and circulars had to resort to the comparatively slow process of cramming their contents through the narrow slit above, with the comforting certainty that they had missed that post.
Turning from this point George Aspel observed that the box for letters—closing, as we have said, half an hour later than that for books and papers—was beginning to show symptoms of activity. At a quarter to six the long metal slit suddenly opened up like a gaping mouth, into which a harlequin could have leaped easily. Through it Aspel could look—over the heads of the public—and see the officials inside dragging away great baskets full of letters to be manipulated in the mysterious realms inside. At five minutes to six the rush towards this mouth was incessant, and the operations at the newspaper-tomb were pretty much repeated, though, of course, the contents of bags and baskets were not quite so ponderous. At one side of the mouth stood an official in a red coat, at the other a policeman. These assisted the public to empty their baskets and trays, gave information, sometimes advice, and kept people moving on. Little boys there, as elsewhere, had a strong tendency to skylark and gaze at the busy officials inside, to the obstruction of the way. The policeman checked their propensities. A stout elderly female panted towards the mouth with a letter in one hand and a paper in the other. She had full two minutes and a half to spare, but felt convinced she was too late. The red-coated official posted her letter, and pointed out the proper place for the newspaper. At two minutes to six anxious people began to run while yet in the street. Cool personages, seeing the clock, and feeling safe, affected an easy nonchalance, but did not loiter. One minute to six—eager looks were on the faces of those who, from all sides, converged towards the great receiving-box. The active sprang up the wide stairs at a bound, heaved in their bundles, or packets, or single missives, and heaved sighs of relief after them; the timid stumbled on the stairs and blundered up to the mouth; while the hasty almost plunged into it bodily. Even at this critical moment there were lulls in the rush. Once there was almost a dead pause, and at that moment an exquisite sauntered towards the mouth, dropped a solitary little letter down the slope where whole cataracts had been flowing, and turned away. He was almost carried off his legs by two youths from a lawyer’s office, who rushed up just as the first stroke of six o’clock rang out on the night air. Slowly and grandly it tolled from St. Paul’s, whose mighty dome was visible above the house-tops from the colonnade. During these fleeting moments a few dozens of late ones posted some hundreds of letters. With kindly consideration the authorities of St. Martin’s-le-Grand have set their timepieces one minute slow. Aware of this, a clerk, gasping and with a pen behind his ear, leaped up the steps at the last stroke, and hurled in a bundle of letters. Next moment, like inexorable fate, the mouth closed, and nothing short of the demolition of the British Constitution could have induced that mouth to convey another letter to the eight o’clock mails.
Hope, however, was not utterly removed. Those who chose to place an additional penny stamp on their letters could, by posting them in a separate box, have them taken in for that mail up to seven. Twopence secured their acceptance up to 7:15. Threepence up to 7:30, and sixpence up to 7:45, but all letters posted after six without the late fees were detained for the following mail.
“Sharp practice!” observed George Aspel to the red-coated official, who, after shutting the mouth, placed a ticket above it which told all corners that they were too late.
“Yes, sir, and pretty sharp work is needful when you consider that the mails we’ve got to send out daily from this office consist of over 5800 bags, weighing forty-three tons, while the mails received number more than 5500 bags. Speaks to a deal of correspondence that, don’t it, sir?”
“What!—every day?” exclaimed Aspel in surprise.
“Every day,” replied the official, with a good-humoured smile and an emphatic nod. “Why, sir,” he continued, in a leisurely way, “we’re some what of a literary nation, we are. How many letters, now, d’you think, pass through the Post-Office altogether—counting England, Scotland, and Ireland?”
“Haven’t the remotest idea.”
“Well, sir,” continued the red-coated man, with impressive solemnity, “we passes through our hands in one year about one thousand and fifty-seven million odd.”
“I know enough of figures,” said Aspel, with a laugh, “to be aware that I cannot realise such a number.”
“Nevertheless, sir,” continued the official, with a patronising air, “you can realise something about such a number. For instance, that sum gives thirty-two letters per head to the population in the year; and, of course, as thousands of us can’t write, and thousands more don’t write, it follows that the real correspondents of the kingdom do some pretty stiff work in the writing way. But these are only the letters. If you include somewhere about four hundred and twenty million post-cards, newspapers, book-packets, and circulars, you have a sum total of fourteen hundred and seventy-seven million odd passing through our hands. Put that down in figures, sir, w’en you git home—1,477,000,000—an p’r’aps it’ll open your eyes a bit. If you want ’em opened still wider, just try to find out how long it would take you to count that sum, at the rate of sixty to the minute, beginning one, two, three, and so on, workin’ eight hours a day without takin’ time for meals, but givin’ you off sixty-five days each year for Sundays and holidays to recruit your wasted energies.”
“How long would it take?” asked Aspel, with an amused but interested look.
“W’y, sir, it would take you just a little over one hundred and seventy years. The calculation ain’t difficult; you can try it for yourself if you don’t believe it.—Good-night, sir,” added the red-coated official, with a pleasant nod, as he turned and entered the great building, where a huge proportion of this amazing work was being at that moment actively manipulated.
Chapter Eight.
Downward—Deeper and Deeper
As the great bell of St. Paul’s struck the half-hour, George Aspel was reminded of the main object of his visit to that part of the City. Descending to the street, and pondering in silent wonder on the vast literary correspondence of the kingdom, he strode rapidly onward, his long legs enabling him to pass ahead of the stream of life that flowed with him, and causing him to jostle not a few members of the stream that opposed him.
“Hallo, sir!” “Look out!” “Mind your eye, stoopid!” “Now, then, you lamp-post, w’ere are you a-goin’ to?” “Wot asylum ’ave you escaped from?” were among the mildest remarks with which he was greeted.
But Aspel heeded them not. The vendors of penny marvels failed to attract him. Even the print-shop windows had lost their influence for a time; and as for monkeys, barrel-organs, and trained birds, they were as the dust under his feet, although at other times they formed a perpetual feast to his unsophisticated soul. “Letters, letters, letters!”
He could think of nothing else. “Fourteen hundred and seventy-seven millions of letters, etcetera, through the Post-Office in one year!” kept ringing through his brain; only varied in its monotony by “that gives thirty-two letters per head to the entire population, and as lots of ’em can’t write, of course it’s much more for those who can! Take a man one hundred and seventy years to count ’em!”
At this point the brilliant glare of a gin-palace reminded him that he had walked far and long, and had for some time felt thirsty. Entering, he called for a pot of beer. It was not a huge draught for a man of his size. As he drained it the memory of grand old jovial sea-kings crossed his mind, and he called for another pot. As he was about to apply it to his lips, and shook back his flaxen curls, the remembrance of, a Norse drinking-cup in his possession—an heirloom, which could not stand on its bottom, and had therefore to be emptied before being set down,—induced him to chuckle quietly before quaffing his beer.
On setting down the empty pot he observed a poor miserable-looking woman, with a black eye and a black bottle, gazing at him in undisguised admiration. Instantly he called for a third pot of beer. Being supplied by the wondering shop-boy, he handed it to the woman; but she shook her head, and drew back with an air of decision.
“No, sir,” she said, “but thank you kindly all the same, sir.”
“Very well,” returned the youth, putting the pot and a half-crown on the counter, “you may drink it or leave it as you please. I pay for it, and you may take the change—or leave that too if you like,” he added, as he went out, somewhat displeased that his feeling of generosity had been snubbed.
After wandering a short distance he was involved in labyrinths of brick and mortar, and suddenly became convinced that he was lost. This was however a small matter. To find one’s way by asking it is not difficult, even in London, if one possesses average intelligence.
The first man he stopped was a Scot. With characteristic caution that worthy cleared his throat, and with national deliberation repeated Aspel’s query, after which, in a marked tone of regret, he said slowly, “Weel, sir, I really div not ken.”
Aspel thanked him with a sarcastic smile and passed on. His next effort was with a countryman, who replied, “Troth, sur, that’s more nor I can tell ’ee,” and looked after his questioner kindly as he walked away. A policeman appearing was tried next. “First to the right, sir, third to the left, and ask again,” was the sharp reply of that limb of the Executive, as he passed slowly on, stiff as a post, and stately as a law of fate.
Having taken the required turns our wanderer found himself in a peculiarly low, dirty, and disagreeable locality. The population was in keeping with it—so much so that Aspel looked round inquiringly before proceeding to “ask again.” He had not quite made up his mind which of the tawdry, half-drunken creatures around him he would address, when a middle-aged man of respectable appearance, dressed in black, issued from one of the surrounding dens.
“A city missionary,” thought George Aspel, as he approached, and asked for direction to the abode of a man named Abel Bones.
The missionary pointed out the entrance to the desired abode, and looked at his questioner with a glance which arrested the youth’s attention.
“Excuse me, sir,” he said, “but the man you name has a very bad character.”
“Well, what then?” demanded Aspel sharply.
“Oh! nothing. I only meant to warn you, for he is a dangerous man.”
The missionary was a thin but muscular man, with stern black eyes and a powerful nose, which might have rendered his face harsh if it had not been more than redeemed by a large firm mouth, round which played lines that told unmistakably of the milk of human kindness. He smiled as he spoke, and Aspel was disarmed.
“Thank you,” he said; “I am well able to take care of myself.”
Evidently the missionary thought so too, for, with a quiet bow, he turned and went his way.
At the end of a remarkably dark passage George Aspel ran his head against a beam and his knee against a door with considerable violence.
“Come in,” said a very weak but sweet little voice, as though doors in that region were usually rapped at in that fashion.
Lifting the latch and entering, Aspel found himself confronted by Tottie Bones in her native home.
It was a very small, desolate, and dirty home, and barely rendered visible by a thin “dip” stuck into an empty pint-bottle.
Tottie opened her large eyes wide with astonishment, then laid one of her dirty little fingers on her rosy lips and looked imploringly at her visitor. Thus admonished, he spoke, without knowing why in a subdued voice.
“You are surprised to see me, Tottie?”
“I’m surprised at nothink, sir. ’Taint possible to surprise me with anythink in this life.”
“D’you expect to be surprised by anything in any other life, Tottie?” asked Aspel, more amused by the air of the child than by her answer.
“P’r’aps. Don’t much know, and don’t much care,” said Tottie.
“Well, I’ve come to ask something,” said the youth, sitting down on a low box for the convenience of conversation, “and I hope, Tottie, that you’ll tell me the truth. Here’s a half-crown for you. The truth, mind, whether you think it will please me or not; I don’t want to be pleased—I want the truth.”
“I’d tell you the truth without that,” said Tottie, eyeing the half-crown which Aspel still held between his fingers, “but hand it over. We want a good many o’ these things here, bein’ pretty hard up at times.”
She spun the piece deftly in the air, caught it cleverly, and put it in her pocket.
“Well, tell me, now, did you post the letter I gave you the night I took tea with Miss Lillycrop?”
“Yes, I did,” answered the child, with a nod of decision.
“You’re telling the truth?”
“Yes; as sure as death.”
Poor Tottie had made her strongest asseveration, but it did not convey to Aspel nearly so much assurance as did the earnest gaze of her bright and truthful eyes.
“You put it in the pillar?” he continued.
“Yes.”
“At the end of the street?”
“Yes, at the end of the street; and oh, you’ve no idea what an awful time I was about it; the slit was so high, an’ I come down sitch a cropper w’en it was done!”
“But it went in all right?”
“Yes, all right.”
George Aspel sat for some moments in gloomy silence. He now felt convinced of that which at first he had only suspected—namely, that his intending patron was offended because he had not at once called in person to thank him, instead of doing so by letter. Probably, also, he had been hurt by the expressions in the letter to which Philip Maylands had objected when it was read to him.
“Well, well,” he exclaimed, suddenly giving a severe slap to his unoffending thigh, “I’ll have nothing to do with him. If he’s so touchy—as that comes to, the less that he and I have to say to each other the better.”
“Oh! please, sir, hush!” exclaimed Tottie, pointing with a look of alarm to a bundle which lay in a dark corner, “you’ll wake ’im.”
“Wake who?”
“Father,” whispered the child.
The visitor rose, took up the pint-bottle, and by the aid of its flaring candle beheld something that resembled a large man huddled together in a heap on a straw mattress, as he had last fallen down. His position, together with his torn and disarranged garments, had destroyed all semblance to human form save where a great limb protruded. His visage was terribly disfigured by the effects of drink, besides being partly concealed by his matted hair.
“What a wretched spectacle!” exclaimed the young man, touching the heap with his foot as he turned away in disgust.
Just then a woman with a black eye entered the room with a black bottle in her hand. She was the woman who had refused the beer from Aspel.
“Mother,” said Tottie, running up to her, “here’s the gent who—”
“’Av-’ee-go’-th’-gin?” growled a deep voice from the dark corner.
“Yes, Abel—”
“’Ave ’ee got th’ gin, I say, Molly?” roared the voice in rising wrath.
“Yes, yes, Abel, here it is,” exclaimed the woman, hastening towards the corner.
The savage who lay there was so eager to obtain the bottle that he made a snatch at it and let it slip on the stone floor, where it was broken to pieces.
“O don’t, Abel dear, don’t! I’ll get another,” pleaded the poor woman; but Abel’s disappointment was too great for endurance; he managed to rise, and made a wild blow at the woman,—missed her, and staggered into the middle of the room. Here he encountered the stern glance of George Aspel. Being a dark, stern man himself, with a bulky powerful frame, he rather rejoiced in the sight of a man who seemed a worthy foe.
“What d’ee wan’ here, you long-legged—hah! would you?” he added, on observing Aspel’s face flush and his fists close, “Take that!”
He struck out at his adversary’s face with tremendous violence. Aspel parried the blow and returned it with such good-will that Abel Bones went headlong into the dark corner whence he had risen,—and lay there.
“I’m very sorry,” said the instantly-repentant George, turning to Mrs Bones, “but I couldn’t help it; really, I—”
“There, there; go away, sir, and thank you kindly,” said the unfortunate woman, urging—almost pushing—her visitor towards the door. “It’ll do ’im good, p’r’aps. He don’t get that every day, an’ it won’t ’urt ’im.”
Aspel found himself suddenly in the dark passage, and heard the door slammed. His first impulse was to turn, dash in the door with his foot, and take vengeance on Abel Bones, his next to burst into a sardonic laugh. Thereafter he frowned fiercely, and strode away. In doing so he drew himself up with sea-king-like dignity and assaulted a beam, which all but crushed his hat over his eyes. This did not improve his temper, but the beer had not yet robbed him of all self-control; he stooped to conquer and emerged into the street.
Well was it for George Aspel that his blow had been such an effective one, for if a riot with Bones had followed the blow, there were numerous kindred spirits there who would have been only too glad to aid their chum, and the intruder would have fared badly among them, despite his physical powers. As it was, he soon regained a respectable thoroughfare, and hastened away in the direction of his lodgings.
But a dark frown clouded his brow, for as he went along his thoughts were busy with what he believed to be the insolent pride of Sir James Clubley. He also thought of May Maylands, and the resolution with which she so firmly yet so gently repelled him. The latter thought wounded his pride as well as his feelings deeply. While in this mood the spirit of the sea-kings arose within him once again. He entered a public-house and had another pot of beer. It was very refreshing—remarkably so! True, the tall and stalwart young frame of George Aspel needed no refreshment at the time, and he would have scorned the insinuation that he required anything to support him—but—but—it was decidedly refreshing! There could be no doubt whatever about that, and it induced him to take a more amiable view of men in general—of “poor Abel Bones” in particular. He even felt less savagely disposed towards Sir James, though he by no means forgave him, but made up his mind finally to have nothing more to do with him, while as to May—hope told him flattering tales.
At this point in his walk he was attracted by one of those traps to catch the unwary, which are so numerous in London—a music-hall. George knew not what it was, and cared not. It was a place of public entertainment: that was enough for him. He wanted entertainment, and in he went.
It is not our purpose to describe this place. Enough is told when we have said that there were dazzling lights and gorgeous scenes, and much music, and many other things to amuse. There were also many gentlemen, but—no ladies. There was also much smoking and drinking.
