nd's maiden name was _Ahaquatuwamuck_. No wonder she changed
it. She _had_ to! Incidentally an Indian chief, Yokee, delivered "unto
Capitanie Nathaniel Sylvester and Ensigne John Booth one turfe with a
twige in their hands," which meant giving the English possession
according to a custom very cannily established by the British. Then poor
dear "Yokee and all his Indians did freely and willingly depart." I
don't believe a _word_ of the willingly! They were just hypnotized!

We meant to have only a look round, and go on by another ferry to Sag
Harbor, thence to arrive at Easthampton. But what do you think happened?
Tom, Dick, and Harry's preposterous Hippopotamus broke out in an
eruption of flame at the very moment when our procession was passing in
review before a large beflagged hotel which faces the Bay. Of course it
had never occurred to the boys to bring one of those patent
extinguishers which all thoughtful automobiles wear now as a matter of
course. And I suppose that (at best) they would have done the Shadrach,
Meschach, and Abednego act if Peter Storm hadn't heard yells and dashed
back with paraphernalia from Pat's car. Jack dashed also, but Peter (I
call him so behind his back) was nearer, and hadn't been wounded. In
three minutes the Hippopotamus was grinning with her mouth wide open,
and the fire out, but looking exactly like one of those uncouth beasts
you see in frescoes of the Inferno, in ancient monasteries abroad.

All the people in the world were on the wide veranda of that immense
hotel, gazing at the free show, and we'd have sold ourselves bag and
baggage for about thirty cents. It is a gray-shingled hotel trimmed with
white, and battalions of rocking-chairs, mobilized in soldierly ranks,
were all left rocking wildly at the top of their voices, their occupants
had sprung up so suddenly. It did give a ghostly effect, as if the
spirits of vanished guests had seized the chairs and begun visibly to
use them the instant their rivals in the flesh were out!

If you fancy that we were able to escape from the eyes and the
rocking-chairs without further pain, that shows how little you know the
Hippopotamus. Being on fire had given it heart-failure or something.
There it stood in front of the hotel, preventing any one else from
driving up, till the animal's blushing keepers had pushed it to one
side, and we were too noble to pretend we weren't acquainted with it, or
even to go on and let it follow. We'd started i