Straight roads reveal everything at a glance and kill interest.
All the journeyings I had ever done had been purely in the way of
business. The pleasant May weather suggested a novelty namely, a trip
for pure recreation, the bread-and-butter element left out. The Reverend
said he would go, too; a good man, one of the best of men, although a
clergyman.
We went ashore and found a novelty of a pleasant nature: there were no
hackmen, hacks, or omnibuses on the pier or about it anywhere, and nobody
offered his services to us, or molested us in any way. I said it was
like being in heaven. The Reverend rebukingly and rather pointedly
advised me to make the most of it, then.
There's cats around here with names that would surprise you. "Maria" (to
his wife), "what was that cat's name that eat a keg of ratsbane by
mistake over at Hooper's, and started home and got struck by lightning
and took the blind staggers and fell in the well and was 'most drowned
before they could fish him out?"--"That was that colored Deacon Jackson's
cat. I only remember the last end of its name, which was Hold-The-Fort-
For-I-Am-Coming Jackson."