swallowed
scalding hot, and, after a hard struggle for it, carried a wedge of
custard pie off with the palm of my hand for a plate, and skivered back
to the cars, nibbling it as I ran; for the bell was ringing and the
conductor yelling "all aboard!" so loud that half the passengers went
back coughing and choking, and muttering some kind of wickedness as they
went.

Well, all the rest of my car ride was just like this, only once in a
while a little more so, till I got onto the Sound. There a great large
steamboat, a quarter of a mile long, took a part of us in, and carried
us right out to sea.

HELL GATE.

I was just a little disappointed in that roaring element. The air that
came above it was salty and light, and the waves sparkled beautifully,
but they did not rage worth a cent. Still the shores away off on both
sides looked dreamy, and we cut through the water so swift that it made
me dizzy.

Two or three stylish sort of men seemed as if they were hankering to
speak to me as I sat there all alone on deck; but I didn't seem to see
it, and they contented themselves with looking at me as if I was the
most cruel creature on earth; which I meant to be. The loss of one
satchel full of doughnuts and things is as much as I can afford on one
trip.

By and by that part of the ocean we travelled on kept growing narrower
and narrower, till you could see houses on both shores, and
splendiferous houses they were, with great meadows a-sloping down to the
water; tall trees shading them, and bushes growing together in clumps.
Some were of stone, some of wood, with pointed roofs and cupolas, and
great wide stoops, in which you could see people sitting and moving
about. Some with spy-glasses in their hands, a-watching us sweep by them
like a house afire.

I felt lonesome and almost homesick, but for all that the sight was
exhilarating--very.

"Haven't we got almost to New York," says I to the captain; "it seems to
me as if the sea was shutting in."

"Oh, we are almost there," says he, "close on to Hell Gate now."

"To what?" says I, almost hopping from the stool I sat on.

"Hell Gate," says he.

"Oh, mercy! you don't tell me it is so bad as that? I knew York was an
awful wicked place, but I didn't think an innocent missionary would have
to go in it through that gate!"

"It is a little dangerous for sail crafts," says he, smiling, I suppose,
to comfort me; "but you are safe. We shall go through with a rush."

I caug