have had them all wide open, and all employed on new objects – are
topics which I will not prolong this chapter to discuss. Neither
will I more than hint at my foreigner-like mistake in supposing
that a party of most active persons, who scrambled on board at the
peril of their lives as we approached the wharf, were newsmen,
answering to that industrious class at home; whereas, despite the
leathern wallets of news slung about the necks of some, and the
broad sheets in the hands of all, they were Editors, who boarded
ships in person (as one gentleman in a worsted comforter informed
me), ‘because they liked the excitement of it.’ Suffice it in this
place to say, that one of these invaders, with a ready courtesy for
which I thank him here most gratefully, went on before to order
rooms at the hotel; and that when I followed, as I soon did, I
found myself rolling through the long passages with an involuntary
imitation of the gait of Mr. T. P. Cooke, in a new nautical
melodrama.
‘Dinner, if you please,’ said I to the waiter.
‘When?’ said the waiter.
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‘As quick as possible,’ said I.
‘Right away?’ said the waiter.
After a moment’s hesitation, I answered ‘No,’ at hazard.
‘NOT right away?’ cried the waiter, with an amount of surprise that
made me start.
I looked at him doubtfully, and returned, ‘No; I would rather have
it in this private room. I like it very much.’
At this, I really thought the waiter must have gone out of his
mind: as I believe he would have done, but for the interposition
of another man, who whispered in his ear, ‘Directly.’
‘Well! and that’s a fact!’ said the waiter, looking helplessly at
me: ‘Right away.’
I saw now that ‘Right away’ and ‘Directly’ were one and the same
thing. So I reversed my previous answer, and sat down to dinner in
ten minutes afterwards; and a capital dinner it was.
The hotel (a very excellent one) is called the Tremont House. It
has more galleries, colonnades, piazzas, and passages than I can
remember, or the reader would believe.
CHAPTER III – BOSTON
IN all the public establishments of America, the utmost courtesy
prevails. Most of our Departments are susceptible of considerable
improvement in this respect, but the Custom-house above all others
would do well to take example from the United States and render
itself somewhat less odious and offensive to foreigners. The
servile rapacity of the French officials is sufficiently
contemptible; but there is a surly boorish incivility about our
men, alike disgusting to all persons who fall into their hands, and
discreditable to the nation that keeps such ill-conditioned curs
snarling about its gates.
When I landed in America, I could not help being strongly impressed
with the contrast their Custom-house presented, and the attention,
politeness and good humour with which its officers discharged their
duty.
As we did not land at Boston, in consequence of some detention at
the wharf, until after dark, I received my first impressions of the
city in walking down to the Custom-house on the morning after our
arrival, which was Sunday. I am afraid to say, by the way, how
many offers of pews and seats in church for that morning were made
to us, by formal note of invitation, before we had half finished
our first dinner in America, but if I may be allowed to make a
moderate guess, without going into nicer calculation, I should say
that at least as many sittings were proffered us, as would have
accommodated a score or two of grown-up families. The number of
creeds and forms of religion to which the pleasure of our company
was requested, was in very fair proportion.
Not being able, in the absence of any change of clothes, to go to
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church that day, we were compelled to decline these kindnesses, one
and all; and I was reluctantly obliged to forego the delight of
hearing Dr. Channing, who happened to preach that morning for the
first time in a very long interval. I mention the name of this