No Good Deed 3

Twilight allowed the street outside the saloon bar a charm that daylight did not afford it. I resolved to depart before the dark of night rendered it dangerous, feeling less confident in this new town. It had been difficult to survive. An education had been what my first few months in the Americas had proved: a cut-purse might have survived in one of the larger cities, New York, perhaps, but I had washed up in Virginia eighteen months ago. Crime was an altogether different profession in the New World. How I wished for the gas lighting that illuminated London. The shadows between illuminated places hid so much more. My last dollar had disappeared into the grubby stage coach driver's pocket. The relative riches I had brought from England had melted away like April snow. For it was hard not to appear a gull for every thief and, in the local vernacular, hornfuggler, when the moment one's mouth opened, one was known for a fresh fish just landed off the boat. It came as some surprise to myself that I had taken so long to divest myself of the last of my jew-tailored clothes. I thought, of a sudden, that I might explore St Louis in the guise of Anson Northrup, and if my accents were at odds with my dress, what of it? Perhaps I was a moneyed layabout recently returned from Europe. Someone had once been at great pains to inform me that clothes maketh the man. I meant to test this theorem to its limits.

Having walked a few furlongs, I found myself at the corner of Olive and Fourth Streets. Some rails adorned the surface of the road, there was a loud clanging bell and something resembling a horse drawn railway carriage blew past in a whirl of dust. I had heard that London had such things by that time, but was greatly surprised to see one in St. Louis. The horse-drawn car screeched to a halt some way down Olive Street and I saw several persons embark. By running at a pace sufficient to shorten my breath considerably, I managed to swing onto the rear access just as the vehicle set off. The acceleration of the vehicle made sitting down a more violent occupation than expected and I was still gasping, when a uniformed fellow accosted me and grunted,

'Whereyagoin'? '

He held a hand out palm upward and I presumed he was seeking a fare.

'End of the line, if you please,' I said.

The man had a full beard and bushy moustaches which were both stained with some brownish liquid,

'A quarter,' he said and he let out a jet of tobacco juice which struck the floor of the vehicle scarce an inch from Anson Northrop's boot.

I laughed in his face and hooked a coin of much smaller denomination from a tiny pocket in the gaudy waistcoat. I dropped the battered metal into his hand and said,

'Not today, sir. Not today.'

He spat again, this time striking the upper of my left boot, but I let it pass.

Opposite me sat a woman of about five and twenty, decorously dressed, but unescorted.

'Excuse me,' I was at a loss how to address her, I admit,' could you tell me if all of these contraptions proceed at this breakneck rate?

'I believe the driver is on his way to The Yaller House,' she made a face suggesting that this was some euphemism for the most repugnant of outhouses.

'I'm sorry, but what exactly might a “Yaller House” be?' I thought it a civil enough question.

The young lady sniffed and said 'Yaller, like the colour, Mister.'

I resolved to stay on the car until the end of the line, or at least until the driver was relieved. The Yellow House had received the most approving comments during the longshoremen's discussion of whorehouses.