Tom is perfectly happy.  He understands every word of their slang, he says, and they understand him; and Octavia says it is because they are all sportsmen together, and have the same point of view.  It won’t be us who have to make Tom stay away from the tarpons, he wants to himself now.  Gaston, too, has risen to the occasion, and is being extra agreeable.  I had a teeny scene with him in the lift as we came down.  We were the last two.  He reproached me for my caprice—­years of devotion he said, did not count with me as much as “Ce Mineur with the figure of a bronze Mercury” (that is how he aptly described Nelson).  He could bear it no more, and intended to cut me from his heart, and throw it at the feet of Mercedes.  I said I thought it was an excellent place for it, and would please everyone, and he had my kindest blessing.  He was so hurt.  “Could I but have seen you minded!” he said, “my felicity would be greater,” so I promised I would bring tears somehow to my eyes, if that would satisfy him.  Then, as he has really a sense of humour, Mamma, even if he is in an awkward position, between two loves, we both burst into peals of laughter; and he caught and kissed my hand, and said we would ever be friends and he adored me.  So I said, “Bless you, my children,” and saw he sat by Mercedes at dinner, and all is smooth and happy, and Gaston is placed; and now I can really amuse myself with Nelson, who is more attractive than ever, to say nothing of a new one who had a roguish eye, and teeth as white as Harry’s, who peeped at me from across the table.  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.  The only thing that was horrid was their spitting on the floor, but we tried not to see that.  Otherwise not a soul was drunk or rude or anything but courteous.  And such interesting types!  Massed together one could judge of them, and the remarkable thing was there was no smell, like there would have been in any other country where workmen in their ordinary clothes were grouped together;—­only tobacco smoke.