is all one to me whether
Croesus has a hundred or a thousand thousands in the bank. There is more
adventure in the life of the working man who descends as a common
soldier into the battle of life, than in that of the millionaire who
sits apart in an office, like Von Moltke, and only directs the
manoeuvres by telegraph. Give me to hear about the career of him who is
in the thick of the business; to whom one change of market means an
empty belly, and another a copious and savoury meal. This is not the
philosophical, but the human side of economics; it interests like a
story; and the life of all who are thus situated partakes in a small way
of the charm of "Robinson Crusoe"; for every step is critical, and human
life is presented to you naked and verging to its lowest terms.

NEW YORK

As we drew near to New York I was at first amused and then somewhat
staggered, by the cautions and the grisly tales that went the round. You
would have thought we were to land upon a cannibal island. You must
speak to no one in the streets, as they would not leave you till you
were rooked and beaten. You must enter a hotel with military
precautions; for the least you had to apprehend was to awake next
morning without money or baggage, or necessary raiment, a lone forked
radish in a bed; and if the worst befell, you would instantly and
mysteriously disappear from the ranks of mankind.

I have usually found such stories correspond to the least modicum of
fact. Thus I was warned, I remember, against the roadside inns of the
Cevennes, and that by a learned professor; and when I reached Pradelles
the warning was explained; it was but the far-away rumour and
reduplication of a single terrifying story already half a century old,
and half forgotten in the theatre of the events. So I was tempted to
make light of these reports against America. But we had on board with us
a man whose evidence it would not do to put aside. He had come near
these perils in the body; he had visited a robber inn. The public has an
old and well-grounded favour for this class of incident, and shall be
gratified to the best of my power.

My fellow-passenger, whom we shall call M'Naughten, had come from New
York to Boston with a comrade, seeking work. They were a pair of
rattling blades; and, leaving their baggage at the station, passed the
day in beer saloons, and with congenial spirits, until midnight struck.
Then they applied them