This, however, is merely conjectural.

The clerk of the boat, of whom I have spoken before, tells me that until within a few years back, the hole in the water where ROGERS struck could be seen.

“But it is all gone now,” he said, shaking his head sadly.  “Nothing can escape the Vandal horde of tourists and relic hunters.  Piece by piece they have carried the hole away, and there is no trace of it left now.”

And he “wept at my tranquillity.”

At the north end of the Lake we took stages for Fort Ticonderoga.  These vehicles were run by a man who was pointed out as a “character,” which means a sort of licensed nuisance.

The monomania of this individual was speech making, and much reflection inclines me to the belief that he is some unappreciated politician who has invented a way of “taking it out” on the unhappy public as follows: 

He waits until his five immense stages arrive at some remote and solitary part of the road, then draws them up in a semi-circle, mounts a stump, and—­on pretence of exhibiting the beauties of nature—­proceeds to harangue the helpless fares to the top of his very high bent, or until one of the slumbering “outsides” creates a welcome diversion by falling off and breaking his neck.

We came to what was really a curiosity—­two kinds of trees growing from one trunk, which this concentration of bores, this mitrailleuse, in fact, improved accordingly.

“Here, Ladies and Gentlemen, you per-ceive one of the re-markable and pe-culiar works of a benign Per-rovidence.  On the right you see the sturdy and iron-hearted oak, while on the left you behold the modest and be-utiful ellum.  What Having has joined together let no man put asunder—­gerlang with yer hosses!”

It must have been a Sunday-school Superintendent who invented excursions to Fort Ty.

It is not a place to Tye to.

One old gentleman pointed to an underground hole and advised me to go and look at the magazine.

I went; but it is hardly necessary to say that I didn’t find any, and, on the whole, I was glad of it If people don’t know any more than to leave their Galaxys and Harper’s lying around loose when travelling, why, they deserve to have them stolen, that’s all.

I was sorry for the old gentleman, but if there is anything that disgusts me, it is to meet people that ain’t posted about things.

As the steamer neared the Hotel, on our return, the departing sun was flinging back his last good-night smile on the lovely scene below, and the musical chime of the little church at Caldwell came stealing sweetly over the bosom of the placid Lake.  As its fairy-like sounds reached our ears, a melancholy-looking man with long hair, who sat near, started, smiled, and turning to me, said: 

“Did I ever tell you that story about SLUKER?”

As I had never seen the party before, I replied that if he had I had forgotten it.