42. CHAPTER XLII.
HIS ADVENTURE WITH THE CROSS OLD GENTLEMAN.
My adventure in the News-Room in the Exchange, which
I have related in a previous chapter, reminds me of another,
at the Lyceum, some days after, which may as well be put
down here, before I forget it.
I was strolling down Bold-street, I think it was, when I
was struck by the sight of a brown stone building, very large
and handsome. The windows were open, and there, nicely
seated, with their comfortable legs crossed over their comfortable
knees, I beheld several sedate, happy-looking old
gentlemen reading the magazines and papers, and one had
a fine gilded volume in his hand.
Yes, this must be the Lyceum, thought I; let me see.
So I whipped out my guide-book, and opened it at the proper
plate; and sure enough, the building before me corresponded
stone for stone. I stood awhile on the opposite side of the
street, gazing at my picture, and then at its original; and
often dwelling upon the pleasant gentlemen sitting at the
open windows; till at last, I felt an uncontrollable impulse
to step in for a moment, and run over the news.
I'm a poor, friendless sailor-boy, thought I, and they can
not object; especially as I am from a foreign land, and
strangers ought to be treated with courtesy. I turned the
matter over again, as I walked across the way; and with
just a small tapping of a misgiving at my heart, I at last
scraped my feet clean against the curb-stone, and taking off
my hat while I was yet in the open air, slowly sauntered in.
But I had not got far into that large and lofty room,
filled with many agreeable sights, when a crabbed old gentlemen
lifted up his eye from the
London Times, which
words I saw boldly printed on the back of the large sheet in
his hand, and looking at me as if I were a strange dog with
a muddy hide, that had stolen out of the gutter into this
fine apartment, he shook his silver-headed cane at me fiercely,
till the spectacles fell off his nose. Almost at the same moment,
up stepped a terribly cross man, who looked as if he
had a mustard plaster on his back, that was continually
exasperating him; who throwing down some papers which
he had been filing, took me by my innocent shoulders, and
then, putting his foot against the broad part of my pantaloons,
wheeled me right out into the street, and dropped me
on the walk, without so much as offering an apology for the
affront. I sprang after him, but in vain; the door was
closed upon me.
These Englishmen have no manners, that's plain, thought
I; and I trudged on down the street in a reverie.
