THE BOYS ON THEIR TRAVELS. A GREAT CITY, AND A GREAT DINNER.
The conductor of that train need not have been much alarmed at falling
in with a "picnic" of any moderate size, for he would have had room in
his train to seat a good part of it, at least.
The boys had no difficulty in getting seats "all together." That is,
they found four empty ones, two on each side, right opposite; and when
they had turned over the front seats, there they were. Ford and Frank
were facing Dabney and Dick on the right; and the two Hart boys were
facing each other on the left, each with a whole seat to himself.
Almost the first thing Joe did, after taking possession, was to lean
over, and whisper,--
"Look out, Fuz,--keep your secret."
"Catch me spoiling a good joke."
The other party seemed disposed to keep pretty quiet for a while; the
first break of any consequence, in the silence, coming when Ford Foster
exclaimed,--
"Dab, it was right along here."
"What was?"
"Where the pig had his collision with my train, first time I was over
here."
"Did you hear him squeal?" asked Frank, as he peered through the window.
"The pig? No; but you ought to have heard the engine squeal, when it saw
him coming."
The story had to be all told over again, of course, and did good service
in getting their thoughts in order for the trip before them. Up to the
mention of the pig, it had somehow seemed to Dab as if the
railway-platform at the station, and all the people on it, had kept
company with the train; and Frank Harley found himself calculating the
distance between that car and the "mission" at Rangoon in far-away
India.
As for Ford Foster, he stood in less need of any "pig" than the rest,
from the fact that he had a large-sized idea in his head.
He kept it there, too, until that train pulled up within reaching
distance of one of the Brooklyn ferries. Before them lay the swift tide
of the broad East River; and beyond that, with its borders of crowded
docks and bristling masts, lay the streets and squares, and swarmed the
multitudes, of the great city of New York.
"Ford," said Dabney, "you're captain this time. What are we to do now?"
"Well, if I ain't captain, I guess I'd better do a little steering. We
must give our checks to the expressman, and have our luggage carted over
to the Grand Central Depot."
"Will it be sure to get there in good time?"
"Of course it wouldn't if we were in any hurry; but our train doesn't
leave until three o'clock, and the express won't fail to have it there
before that."
Ford was all alive with the responsibilities of his position, as the
only boy in the party who had been born in the city, and had travelled
all over it, and a little out of it.
"Joe and Fuz," he said, "will want to take the night boat for Albany.
They've more time on their hands than we have. Joe?--Fuz?--why can't you
come along with us after you've checked your trunks? We'll be getting
dinner before long."
The Hart boys promptly assented, after a look at each other, and a sort
of chuckle.
"Might as well keep together," said Joe. "We'd like to take a look at
things."
"Come along. I'll show you."
Frank Harley had seen quite a number of great cities, and he could
hardly help saying something about them while they were going over on
the ferryboat. They were all as far forward as they could get.
"Did you ever see any thing just like this?" asked Dab.
"Well, no, not just like it"--
"In India, or in China, or in London, or in Africa?" said Ford.
"It's a little different from any thing I ever saw."
"Well, isn't it bigger?"
That was a question Frank might have undertaken to answer if there had
been proper time given him; but just then the boat was running into her
"slip," away down town, and Ford exclaimed,--
"Hurrah, boys! Now for Fulton Market and some oysters."
"Oysters?" said Dab.
"Yes, sir! There's more oysters in that old shanty than there are in
your bay."
"I don't know about that," said Dab, staring at the queer, huge, rickety
old mass of unsightly wood and glass that Ford was pointing at, after
they got ashore. "I'm hungry, anyhow."
"Hungry? So am I. But no man ought to say he's been in New York till
he's tried some Fulton-Market oysters."
"Let's take 'em raw," said Fuz. "Then we can go ahead."
Dick Lee had been in the city before, but never in such company, nor in
such very good clothes; and there was an expression on his face a good
deal like awe, when he actually found himself standing at an
"oyster-counter," in line with five well-dressed young white boys.
The man behind the counter served him, too, in regular turn; and Dick
felt it a point of honor to empty the half-shell before him as quickly
as any of the rest. There was no delay about that, anywhere along that
line of boys.
"Dick," said Ford, "where's your lemon? There it is!"
Ford had already explained to the rest that it was "against the
constitution and by-laws of Fulton Market to eat a raw oyster without
the lemon-juice," and Dick would have blushed if he could.
"Dat's so. I forgot um!" and then he added, with great care, "Yes, Mr.
Foster, the lemon improves the oyster."
"I declare!" muttered Ford. "He's keeping it up!"
The oysters were eaten, and then it was "Come on, boys;" and away they
went up Fulton Street to Broadway. They walked two and two, as well as
the streams of people would let them, but the Hart boys kept a little in
the rear.
"What do you think of it, Joe?"
"Think of what?"
"Walking over New York with Dick Lee, just as if he was one of us?"
"Guess nobody'll think we're walking with him. Anybody can tell what we
are, just by looking at us."
"Dick's face shows just what he is too. I don't care for this once, but
it's awful."
If any such thought were troubling Ford Foster, he made no confession of
it, and was even specially careful, now and then, to turn around and
address some remark or other to "the member from Africa," as he called
him.
"Dick," said Dab in an undertone, as they were leaving the market, "you
look out, now: you must have as good a time as any of us, or I won't
feel right about it."
"Jes' you sail right ahead, Cap'n Dab. I's on hand."
Ford was determined to "do the honors," and he led them down Broadway to
the Battery before he started "up town;" and he had something to say
about a great many of the buildings. Dab felt his respect for city boys
increasing rapidly, and Dick remarked,--
"Ef he don't know dis coas' mos' as well as I know de bay!"
It looked like it, and he also seemed to be on terms of easy
acquaintance with some of the human "fish" they fell in with. Not that
he spoke to any of them; but he pointed out the several
kinds,--policemen, firemen, messenger-boys, loafers, brokers,
post-office carriers, a dozen more, with a degree of confidence which
fairly astonished his friends.
"I could learn to tell all of them that wear uniforms, myself," said
Dabney; "but how do you know the others?"
"How do I know 'em? Well, it's just like knowing a miller or a
blacksmith, when you see him. They all have some kind of smut on them
that comes from their trade."
There may have been something in that, or it may be barely possible that
Ford now and then mixed his men a little, and pointed out brokers as
"gamblers," and busy attorneys as probable pickpockets. He may have been
too confident.
On they went, till the brains of all but Ford and Frank were in a sort
of whirl. Even Dab Kinzer was contented to look without talking; and
Dick Lee, although he had not a word to say, found unusual difficulty in
keeping his mouth shut. It positively would come open, every time Ford
pointed out another big building, and told him what it was.
They were not travelling very fast, but they were using a good deal of
time in all that sight-seeing; and walking is hungry business, and a few
raw oysters could not last six hearty boys very long.
"I say, Ford," sung out Joe from the rear, "isn't it getting pretty near
time for us to think of getting something to eat?"
"We're 'most there now. We're going to have our dinner at the
Magnilophant to-day."
"What's that?" said Frank.
"Never heard of it? Oh! You're the member from India. Well, it's the
greatest restaurant in the known world, or in Paris either. Beats any
thing on Long Island. Serve you up any thing there is, and no living man
can tell what he's eating."
Ford was in high spirits, and seemed all one chuckle of self-confidence.
It was indeed a remarkably elegant establishment in its line, into which
he led them a few minutes later.
There certainly was nothing like it on Long Island, whatever might be
true of Paris and other places outside of the "known world."
Dab Kinzer felt like walking very straight as he followed his "leader,"
and Dick Lee had to use all the strength he had to keep himself from
taking his hat right off when he went in.
There was any amount of glitter and shine, in all directions; and Dab
had a confused idea that he had never before believed that the world
contained so many tables. Ford seemed wonderfully at home and at ease;
and Dick found voice enough to say, half aloud,--
"Ain't I glad he's got de rudder, dis time? Cap'n Dab couldn't steer
t'rough dis yer."
The "steering" was well done; and it brought them nearly to the farther
end of the great, splendid room, and seated them at a round table that
seemed as well furnished as even Mrs. Foster's own. They all imitated
Ford in hanging their hats on the appointed pegs before sitting down.
"Now, boys, what shall we have?" he said, as he gazed learnedly up and
down the printed bill of fare. "Speak up, Joe, Fuz, what's your
weakness?"
Every boy of them was willing to let Ford do his best with that part of
the dinner; and he was hard at work deciding what soup and fish he had
better pick out, when the tall waiter who had bustled forward to receive
the coming "order," bent over his shoulder, and pointed to Dick Lee,
inquiring,--
"Beg pardon, sah! Is dis young colored gen'l-man of youah party? It's
'gainst de rules ob de establishment, sah."
Dab Kinzer felt his face flush fiery red; and he was on the point of
saying something, he hardly knew what, when Ford looked calmly up into
the mahogany face of the mulatto waiter, with,--
"You refer to my friend from Africa? We'll talk about that after dinner.
Gumbo soup and Spanish mackerel if you please. Sharp, now!"
"But, sah"--
"Don't be afflicted, my friend. He's as white as anybody, except on
Fridays: this is his black day. Hurry up the soup and fish."
Joe and Fuz were looking as if they were dreadfully ashamed of
something; but poor Dick was sitting up as straight as a ramrod, under
the influence of a glance that he had taken at the face of Dab Kinzer.
"I isn't goin' back on him and Ford," he said to himself. "I'd foller
dem fellers right fru' dis yer eatin'-house."
Frank Harley seemed to be getting some information. In the country he
had lived in nearly all his life, "colored people" were as good as
anybody if they were of the right sort; and a man's skin had little to
do with the degree of respect paid him, although even there it was an
excellent thing to be "white."
As for the mulatto waiter, after a moment more of hesitation, he took
Ford's order, and walked dignifiedly away, muttering,--
"Nebber seen de like afore. Reckon I isn't g'wine to tote soup and fish
for no nigger: I'll see de boss."
That meant an appeal to the lordly and pompous but quite gentlemanly
"head waiter," a man as white as Ford Foster. A word or two to him, a
finger pointed towards the upper end of the hall, and the keen eyes of
the "man in authority" took it all in.
"Six of them,--five white and one black. Well, Gus, do they look as if
they could pay their bill before they go?"
"Yes, sah, dey does. De young gen'lman wid de bill ob fare in his han',
he's got moah cheek, an' moah tongue, an' moah lip, sah"--
"Well then, Gus, you just tramp right along. If he and the rest don't
care, I don't. It'll be time enough for me to make a fool of myself when
somebody offers to pay me for it. Give 'em their dinner! Sharp!"
"It's jes' a mons'ous outrage," growled the offended waiter, as he
stalked away; but he took good care to obey his orders, for he had a
consciousness that the eyes of his "master" were on him. He could hardly
have guessed how completely his errand had been understood by the six
boys, or how closely Ford Foster had "hit it." Said he, in reply to an
angry remark from Dab Kinzer,--
"It's all humbug. They run this concern to make money, and they want
some of ours. Mr. Marigold'll be sent right back with our soup."
He was right; but, before they had eaten their way to the pie and
pudding, Ford was dignifiedly informed,--
"If you please, sah, my name isn't Mr. Marigold, sah, it is Mr.
Bellerington, sah; an' my first name isn't Coffee, sah, it's Augustus."
"You don't say," replied Ford: "well, Augustus, don't forget the little
remark I made about pie and the other things."
It was a capital dinner; and Ford was proud of it, for he had picked out
every item of it, from the soup to the macaroons. Dick Lee had enjoyed
it hugely, after he began to feel that his first social victory had been
fairly won for him. Still, he had doubts in his own mind as to whether
he would ever dare such another undertaking with less than five white
boys along to "see him through."
Joe and Fuz ate well; but their spirits were manifestly low, for they
were painfully conscious of having forever lost the good opinion of that
mulatto waiter.
"But for Dick Lee's being with us," they thought, "he and everybody else
would have known we were gentlemen. We'll never be caught in such a trap
again."
It is a very sad matter, no doubt, to lose the intelligent respect of
such gentlemen as Mr. Augustus Bellerington, but it sometimes has to be
done; that is, unless their good opinion is to be gained by some nice
little stroke of sneaking cowardice.
Joe and Fuz stood it out, indeed, mainly because they were in some way
more afraid of Dab and Ford and Frank than they were of even Augustus.
That, too, was strange; for they were older than either of the others,
and taller than any but Dabney himself.
The dinner was well eaten, and it was well paid for, as Dabney remarked
when he paid his share and half of Dick's; and then they were all in the
street again, marching along, and "sight-seeing," towards the Grand
Central Railroad Depot.