On the opposite bank of the river, a stout, middle-aged, and apparently demented Clerk in Holy Orders was dancing the Cachuca. BOOK TWO _FORTITER IN RE_ CHAPTER VI KNIGHT-ERRANTRY _À LA MODE_ If all good Americans go to Paris when they die, it may safely be predicted that all the bad ones will be booked through to Coney Island. So much may be inferred from the regularity and zeal with which the Toughs, Hoboes, Bowery Boys, and other fearful wildfowl of the New York proletariat, accompanied by the corresponding females of the species, betake themselves every Sabbath by trolley-car or steamer to this haunt of ancient peace (which, by the way, is not to all appearances an island and harbours no conies). Take Margate and Douglas and Blackpool, and pile them into an untidy heap; throw in a dozen Fun-Cities from Olympia and half a score of World's Fairs from the Agricultural Hall; add some of the less reputable features of Earl's Court and Neuilly Fair; include a race-course of the baser sort; case the whole in wood, and people it with sallow gentlemen in striped jerseys and ladies answering exclusively to such names as Hattie, Sadie, and Mamie, reared up apparently upon an exclusive diet of peanuts and clam-chowder; keep the whole multitude duly controlled and disciplined by a police force which, if appearances go for anything, has been recruited entirely from the criminal classes; and you will be able faintly to realise what Coney Island can do when it tries on a fine Sunday in summer. So thought Hughie Marrable. He had been wandering round the world for nine years now; but not even a previous acquaintance with the Devil Dancers of Ceylon, the unhallowed revels of Port Said, or the refinements of a Central African Witch-Hunt (with full tom-tom accompaniment), had quite prepared him for this. Still, it was part and parcel of Life, and Life was what he had left England to see.