They Were Too Highly Amused With My Recital To
Sympathise At All With My Feelings Of Annoyance, And One Of
Them, a
gentleman filling a high situation in the East, laughed heartily, saying,
in a thoroughly American tone, "The English
Ladies must be 'cute
customers, if they can outwit Yankee pickpockets."
Meaning to stay all night at Chicago, we drove to the two best hotels,
but, finding them full, were induced to betake ourselves to an advertising
house, the name of which it is unnecessary to give, though it will never
be effaced from my memory. The charge advertised was a dollar a day, and
for this every comfort and advantage were promised.
The inn was a large brick building at the corner of a street, with nothing
very unprepossessing in its external appearance. The wooden stairs were
dirty enough, and, on ascending them to the so-called "ladies' parlour," I
found a large, meanly-furnished apartment, garnished with six spittoons,
which, however, to my disgust, did not prevent the floor from receiving a
large quantity of tobacco-juice.
There were two rifles, a pistol, and a powder-flask on the table; two
Irish emigrant women were seated on the floor (which swarmed with black
beetles and ants), undressing a screaming child; a woman evidently in a
fever was tossing restlessly on the sofa; two females in tarnished Bloomer
habiliments were looking out of the window; and other extraordinary-
looking human beings filled the room. I asked for accommodation for the
night, hoping that I should find a room where I could sit quietly.
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