The
"sportsmen" had reduced it in bulk. When I had finished counting it, I
could not help smiling at the absurdity of the thing. "A hundred
dollars _for the quadroon! Likely_--_good housekeeper, etcetera! a
hundred dollars bid_!" The auctioneer would not be likely to repeat the
bid.

All now depended on the English mail. If it had not arrived already, or
did not before the morning, I would be helpless. Without the letter on
my New Orleans banker, I could not raise fifty pounds--watch, jewels,
and all. As to borrowing, I did not think of such a thing. Who was to
lend me money? Who to an almost perfect stranger would advance such a
sum as I required? No one I felt certain. Reigart could not have
helped me to so large an amount, even had there been time to communicate
with him. No--there was no one who _would_, that _could_ have favoured
me. No one I could think of.

"Stop:"--the banker himself! Happy thought, the banker Brown! Good,
generous Brown, of the English house, Brown and Co., who, with smiling
face, has already cashed my drafts for me. He will do it! The very
man! Why did I not think of him sooner? Yes; if the letter have not
reached him I shall tell him that I expect it every day, and its amount.
He will advance the money.

"Twelve o'clock gone. There is no time to be lost. He's in his
counting-house by this. I shall at once apply to him."

I seized my hat, and hastening out of the hotel, took my way through the
streets towards the banking-house of Brown and Co.

CHAPTER FIFTY TWO.

BROWN AND CO.

The banking-house of Brown and Co. was in Canal Street. From the Saint
Louis Exchange, Canal Street may be approached by the Rue Conti, or the
parallel street of the Rue Royale. The latter is the favourite
promenade of the gay Creole-French, as Saint Charles Street is for the
fashionable Americans.

You will wonder at this _melange_ of French and English in the
nomenclature of streets. The truth is, that New Orleans has a
peculiarity somewhat rare. It is composed of two distinct cities--a
French and an American one. I might even say _three_, for there is a
Spanish quarter with a character distinct from either, and where you may
see on the corner the Spanish designation "Calle," as the _Calle de
Casacalvo, Calle del Obispo_, etcetera. This peculiarity is explained
by referring to the history of Louisiana. It was colonised by the
French in the early part of the eighteenth centu