Works of Jules Verne/A Floating City/Chapter 9
CHAPTER IX
CHARACTERS AMONG THE PASSENGERS
In spite of the ship's disorderly conduct, life on board was becoming organized, for which the Anglo-Saxon nothing is more simple. The steamboat is his street and his house for the time being; the Frenchman, on the contrary, always looks like a traveler.
When the weather was favorable, the boulevards were thronged with promenaders, who managed to maintain the perpendicular, in spite of the ship's motion, but with the peculiar gyrations of tipsy men. When the passengers did not go on deck, they remained either in their private sitting-rooms or in the grand saloon, and then began the noisy discords of pianos, all played at the same time, which, however, seemed not to affect Saxon ears in the least. Among these amateurs, I noticed a tall, bony woman, who must have been a good musician, for, in order to facilitate reading her piece of music, she had marked all the notes with a number, and the piano keys with a number corresponding, so that if it was note twenty-seven she struck key twenty-seven; if fifty-three, key fifty-three, and so on, perfectly indifferent to the noise around her, or the sound of other pianos in the adjoining saloons, and her equanimity was not even disturbed when some disagreeable little children thumped with their fists on the unoccupied keys.
Whilst this concert was going on, a bystander would carelessly take up one of the books scattered here and there on the tables, and, having found an interesting passage, would read it aloud, whilst his audience listened good humoredly, and complimented him with a flattering murmur of applause. Newspapers were scattered on the sofas, generally American and English, which always look old, although the pages have never been cut; it is a very tiresome operation reading these great sheets, which take up so much room, but the fashion being to leave them uncut, so they remain. One day I had the patience to read the New York Herald from beginning to end under these circumstances, and judge if I was rewarded for my trouble when I turned to the column headed "Private"; "M. X. begs the pretty Miss Z———, whom he met yesterday in Twenty-fifth Street omnibus, to come to him to-morrow, at his rooms, No. 17, St. Nicholas Hotel; he wishes to speak of marriage with her." What did the pretty Miss Z——— do? I don't even care to know.
I passed the whole of the afternoon in the grand saloon talking, and observing what was going on about me. Conversation could not fail to be interesting, for my friend Dean Pitferge was sitting near me.
"Have you quite recovered from the effects of your tumble?" I asked him.
"Perfectly," replied he, "but it's no go."
"What is no go? You?"
"No, our steamship; the screw boilers are not working well; we cannot get enough pressure."
"You are anxious, then, to get to New York?"
"Not in the least; I speak as an engineer, that is all. I am very comfortable here, and shall sincerely regret leavingthis collection of originals which chance has thrown together. . . . for my recreation."
"Originals!" cried I, looking at the passengers who crowded the saloon; "but all those people are very much alike."
"Nonsense!" exclaimed the Doctor, "one can see you have hardly looked at them; the species is the same, I allow, but in that species what a variety there is! Just notice that group of men down there, with their easy-going air, their legs stretched on the sofas, and hats screwed down on their heads. They are Yankees, pure Yankees, from the small states of Maine, Vermont, and Connecticut, the produce of New England. Energetic and intelligent men, rather too much influenced by 'the Reverends,' and who have the disagreeable fault of never putting their hands before their mouths when they sneeze. Ah! my dear sir, they are true Saxons, always keenly alive to a bargain; put two Yankees in a room together, and in an hour they will each have gained ten dollars from the other."
"I will not ask how," replied I, smiling at the Doctor, "but among them I see a little man with a consequential air, looking like a weather-cock, and dressed in a long overcoat, with rather short black trousers,—who is that gentleman?"
"He is a Protestant minister, a man of 'importance' in Massachusetts, where he is going to join his wife, an ex-governess advantageously implicated in a celebrated lawsuit."
"And that tall, gloomy-looking fellow, who seems to be absorbed in calculation?"
"That man calculates: in fact," said the Doctor, "he is forever calculating."
"Problems?"
"No, his fortune; he is a man of 'importance'; at any moment he knows almost to a farthing what he is worth; he is rich, a fourth part of New York is built on his land; a quarter of an hour ago he possessed $1,625,367 and a half, but now he has only $1,625,367 and a quarter."
"How came this difference in his fortune?"
"Well! he has just smoked a quarter-dollar cigar."
Doctor Dean Pitferge amused me with his clever repartees, so I pointed out to him another group stowed away in a corner of the saloon.
"They," said he, "are people from the far west, the tallest, who looks like a head clerk, is a man of 'importance,' the head of a Chicago bank, he always carries an album under his arm, with the principal views of his beloved city. He is, and has reason to be, proud of a city founded in a desert in 1836, which at the present day has a population of more than 400,000 souls. Near him you see a Californian couple, the young wife is delicate and charming, her well-polished husband was once a plow-boy, who one fine day turned up some nuggets. That gentleman———"
"Is a man of 'importance,'" said I.
"Undoubtedly," replied the Doctor, "for his assets count by the million."
"And pray, who may this tall individual be, who moves his head backwards and forwards like the pendulum of a clock?"
"That person," replied the Doctor, "is the celebrated Cockburn of Rochester, the universal statistician, who has weighed, measured, proportioned, and calculated everything. Question this harmless maniac, he will tell you how much bread a man of fifty has eaten in his life, and how many cubic feet of air he has breathed. He will tell you how many volumes in quarto the words of a Temple lawyer would fill, and how many miles the postman goes daily carrying nothing but love letters; he will tell you the number of widows who pass in one hour over London Bridge, and what would be the height of a pile of sandwiches consumed by the citizens of the Union in a year; he will tell you———"
The Doctor, in his excitement, would have continued for a long time in this strain, but other passengers passing us were attracted by the inexhaustible stock of his original remarks. What different characters there were in this crowd of passengers! not one idler, however, for one does not go from one continent to the other without some serious motive. The most part of them were undoubtedly going to seek their fortunes on American ground, forgetting that at twenty years of age a Yankee has made his fortune, and that at twenty-five he is already too old to begin the struggle.
Among these adventurers, inventors, and fortune hunters, Dean Pitferge pointed out to me some singularly interesting characters. Here was a chemist, a rival of Dr. Liebig, who pretended to have discovered the art of condensing all the nutritious parts of a cow into a meat-tablet, no larger than a five-shilling piece. He was going to coin money out of the cattle of the Pampas. Another, the inventor of a portable motive power—a steam horse in a watch case—was going to exhibit his patent in New England. Another, a Frenchman from the "Rue Chapon," was carrying to America 30,000 cardboard dolls, which said "papa" with a very successful Yankee accent, and he had no doubt but that his fortune was made.
But besides these originals, there were still others whose secrets we could not guess; perhaps among them was some cashier flying from his empty cash box, and a detective making friends with him, only waiting for the end of the passage to take him by the collar; perhaps also we might have found in this crowd clever genii, who always find people ready to believe in them, even when they advocate the affairs of "The Oceanic Company for lighting Polynesia with gas," or "The Royal Society for making incombustible coal."
But at this moment my attention was attracted by the entrance of a young couple who seemed to be under the influence of a precocious weariness.
"They are Peruvians, my dear sir," said the Doctor, a couple married a year ago, who have been to all parts of the world for their honeymoon. They adored each other in Japan, loved in Australia, bore with one another in India, bored each other in France, quarreled in England, and will undoubtedly separate in America."
"And," said I, "who is that tall, haughty-looking man just coming in? from his appearance I should take him for an officer."
"He is a Mormon," replied the doctor, "an elder, Mr. Hatch, one of the great preachers in the city of Saints. What a fine type of manhood he is! Look at his proud eye, his noble countenance, and dignified bearing, so different from the Yankee. Mr. Hatch is returning from Germany and England, where he has preached Mormonism with great success, for there are numbers of this sect in Europe, who are allowed to conform to the laws of their country."
"Indeed!" said I; "I quite thought that polygamy was forbidden them in Europe."
"Undoubtedly, my dear sir, but do not think that polygamy is obligatory on Mormons; Brigham Young has his harem, because it suits him, but all his followers do not imitate him, not even those dwelling on the banks of the Salt Lake."
"Indeed! and Mr. Hatch?"
"Mr. Hatch has only one wife, and he finds that quite enough; besides, he proposes to explain his system in a meeting that he will hold one of these evenings."
"The saloon will be filled."
"Yes," said Pitferge, "if the gambling does not attract too many of the audience; you know that they play in a room at the bows? There is an Englishman there with an evil, disagreeable face, who seems to take the lead among them, he is a bad man, with a detestable reputation. Have you noticed him?"
From the Doctor's description, I had no doubt but that he was the same man who that morning had made himself conspicuous by his foolish wagers with regard to the waif. My opinion of him was not wrong. Dean Pitferge told me his name was Harry Drake, and that he was the son of a merchant at Calcutta, a gambler, a dissolute character, a duelist, and now that he was almost ruined, he was most likely going to America to try a life of adventures. "Such people," added the Doctor, "always find followers willing to flatter them, and this fellow has already formed his circle of scamps, of which he is the center. Among them I have noticed a little short man, with a round face, a turned-up nose, wearing gold spectacles, and having the appearance of a German Jew; he calls himself a doctor, on the way to Quebec; but I take him for a low actor and one of Drake's admirers."
At this moment Dean Pitferge, who easily skipped from one subject to another, nudged my elbow. I turned my head towards the saloon door; a young man about twenty-eight, and a girl of seventeen, were coming in arm in arm.
"A newly-married pair?" asked I.
"No," replied the Doctor, in a softened tone," an engaged couple, who are only waiting for their arrival in New York to get married; they have just made the tour of Europe, of course with their family's consent, and they know now that they are made for one another. Nice young people; it is a pleasure to look at them. I often see them leaning over the railings of the engine-rooms, counting the turns of the wheels, which do not go half fast enough for their liking. Ah! sir, if our boilers were heated like those two youthful hearts, see how our speed would increase!"