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Updated: June 20, 2025
It is often said that "death is the end of a journey," but the aptness of the simile is realized most fully in Paris. Any arrival, especially of a person of condition, upon the "dark brink," is hailed in much the same way as the traveler recently landed is hailed by hotel touts and pestered with their recommendations.
When he reached the Palace he made his way through the throng of beggars, touts, and hangers-on in the outer courtyard, and, passing the sentries, all of whom recognised him, entered the building. Through the maze of passages and courts he penetrated to the room occupied by his father in virtue of his appointment in the Rajah's service.
You couldn't tire him, and he was just the same the end of the day as the beginning. If he hadn't fallen into Starlight's hands as a colt he'd have been a second-class racehorse, and wore out his life among touts and ringmen. He was better where he was. Off we went; what a ride we had that night! Just as well we'd fed and rested before we started, else we should never have held out.
Once the resort of bucks and Macaronis, Ford's coffee-house I found frequented by a strange assortment of individuals, some of whom resembled bookmakers' touts, others clerks of an inexplicably rustic type. Who these people really were I never discovered. "I generally have supper at Pepolo's," said Julian, as we left the theatre, "before a Covent Garden Ball. Shall we go on there?"
Once, when wandering aimlessly, as one so often does through the Paris streets, one of the touts hanging round the Cafe de la Paix to catch the unwary stranger being a little more importunate than usual, I ordered him to go about his business. "This is my business," he impudently answered. "Get away, I tell you!" I thundered, "I am a Parisian myself!"
"You know him?" "Oh! yass, sah; Mawse Honoré knows me, yass. All de gen'lemens knows me. I sell de calas; mawnin's sell calas, evenin's sell zinzer-cake. "Dat me w'at pass in rue Royale ev'y mawnin' holl'in' 'Bé calas touts chauds, an' singin'; don't you know?"
There were actresses, dancers, shop girls, cocottes; touts, thieves, confidence-men, mission workers; artists and students from the musty University building, tramps and drunkards from the "barrel-houses" and "stale-beer shops;" and, across the square to the north, representatives of New York's oldest and most noted families.
The yard-man, who could tell you stories of Boomerang's National, and Cannibal's victory, that not even Monkey Brand could surpass, knew of old the feeling between Putnam's and the Dewhurst stable, and had placed the boxes of the two horses far apart. All through the week the excitement grew. The Sefton Arms was seething; the bar a slowly heaving mass of racing-men, jockeys, touts, habitués.
Some police agents charged with maintaining order were cursing that fearful mire which splashed their boots; and indeed it was only the touts, the young and old women who had rooms to let, who laughed at the puddles, which they crossed and crossed again in every direction, pursuing the last pilgrims that emerged from the station.
"Don't let 'em take it," shouted the lad who was squabbling with the first pair, and I was just beginning to think that I should have to fight for my belongings, when a dock policeman came to our help, the cabmen were paid, and our chests were placed upon a truck, while the cab touts pressed upon us and insisted on being paid for doing nothing.
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