But I must get on with the evening. Octavia and I wanted to see
everything, gambling saloons, dance halls, fights, whatever was going,
and as Lola has done it all before, she said she would stay with the
girls, and have a little mild flutter in the saloon of the hotel at
roulette while our stalwart cavaliers escorted us "around." Gaston, too,
remained behind with them; the Senator manoeuvred this, because he said,
it was not wise to be with people who were quarrelsome, and Gaston is
that now and then with his Latin blood.
We went first to a gambling saloon. Think of a huge room with no carpet
and a horseshoe kind of bar up the middle, with every sort of drink on
it; and up at the end and round the sides gambling tables of all kinds
of weird games that I did not understand, and can't explain--except
roulette. There were hundreds of men in there, of all sorts, miners in
their miners' dress; team drivers, superintendents--every species. If
one said "gambling hell" in Europe it would sound as if it meant a most
desperate place, with people drunk, and impossible to go into, but here
not at all! Naturally, Octavia and I looked remarkable, although we were
dressed in the plainest clothes, and yet not a soul stared or was the
least rude.
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