The costs they make here are very good, however, altho’ they do put a little too much mint in them, I must say.

L.G. is all right, though.  It is supplied with all the modern conveniences.  It isn’t within five minutes walk of the post office, but its water conveniences are apparent to all.  There is no end to its belles, and as for its ranges, it has two of them—­both Adirondacks.

Yesterday I took a trip up the Lake and across to its neighbor, Champlain.

Everybody takes this trip because its “the thing,” and it is therefore particularly necessary to take it.  Ostensibly, you go to view the scenery, really, to be inveigled into paying for a low comedy of a dinner at the other end.

The first place our boat stopped at is called the “Trout Pavillion,” principally, so far as I can learn, on account of the immense number of pickerel caught there, and from the fact that it is unquestionably a good site for a Pavillion whenever the esteemed Proprietor turns up jacks enough, at his favorite game, to build one.

The next place was set down in the Guide Book as the “Three Sisters” Islands, an appellation arising from the fact that there are precisely four of them.

I mentioned this apparent discrepancy to the boat clerk.

This young man, who belongs to a Base Ball Club, informs me that these islands invariably travelled with a “substitute,” as one occasionally got “soaked.”

This certainly seems a little curious, but as the young man says he was born here, I suppose he knows.

This same young man pointed out a beautiful spot called Green Island and asked me if I wouldn’t like to live there.

He said he thought it would just suit me.

The attention of these people is really delightful.

Some of these places, however, have very inappropriate names, for instance another little gem is called “Hog Island.”  No one knows why it was so called.  The clerk of the boat don’t either.

He wanted to know if I had ever dined there.

I always make it a point to get on the right side of these Steamboat fellows, always.

About half way up the Lake is a place called Tongue Mountain.

A long time ago a colony of strong-minded women settled there.

That may have had something to do with its name.

Nobody ever goes there now.

People go very near the mountain in boats, however, as it is noted for something very extraordinary in the Echo line.

It has what is called a “Double Echo.”

I fully expected something of this kind.

Now if there is anything I am particularly down on, it is those unmitigated frauds known as Echoes.  And if I ever throw four sixes, it is when I am tackling some unsuspecting old ass of a watering place echo.

I consider them “holler mockeries.”

Of course we steamed within proper distance, and I seized the opportunity to “put a head on” this venerable two-ply nuisance, as follows: