My attention was attracted toward a young man, apparently of about twenty-five, who was in a desperate plight. Agony was visibly graved in every feature and in every line of his face. I asked who he was, and heard the name of a distinguished family of northern New York. "What is the matter with him!" I asked. My cicerone seemed astonished at my stupendous ignorance. "Why, can you not see they are 'going through' him?" he said in turn. The expressive term was sufficient even for my unsophisticated mind. It told the whole story, like a "scare-head" in a "yellow" newspaper.
Then I turned from the victim to the predatory players about him. Who were they? To my surprise, the names were those of men famous the world over as bankers, merchants, and financiers. There was one man that especially interested me. It was the American representative of an English house whose commercial paper our house frequently used. I said to myself, "I will cut his name from our list," and I did--for a time. I learned afterward that banking was only one form of gambling. Great financiers are often clever gamesters--players for desperate stakes, but infinitely better players than their victims. This world of finance is a great Monte Carlo. It was vain to entertain a prejudice against only one of the players.
It was now necessary for me to hurry back to Boston in order to catch the Parliament, on which I had already engaged passage. But before leaving America, I wanted to see something of Canada, and resolved upon a rapid trip to Montreal, especially as I found that I could return to New York that way almost as quickly as to go across the State. I went on to Niagara, and then sailed for Montreal, and had the novel experience of shooting La Chine Rapids, an Indian piloting the boat. This was a great thing in those days, and I was amazed to see how skilfully the Indian guided the boat in and out among the rocks, never doubtful of his course, never touching the edges of the reefs and boulders, never imperiling human life. I understood that for years these pilots had guided the boats down the rapids without a single accident.
On the boat on which I went down the St. Lawrence I met Captain Stoddard, of the Crescent City Steam Packet, New York and Havana, and Mr. Dinsmore, of the Adams Express Company, with the ladies of their families. We all saw Montreal together, and some members of the party made excursions to places elsewhere. One of these was to the famous Grey Nunnery, the doors of which were closed to the outside world. But these Americans, with true American spirit, expected all doors to open to them, and would not accept the situation.