n't exactly
usual with him. There was no mistaking Corny's feelings.

After breakfast, when we all got together to talk over the plans of the
day,--a thing we hadn't done for what seemed to me about a week,--we
found out--or rather remembered--that there were a lot of things in
Nassau that we hadn't seen yet, and that we wouldn't miss for anything.
We had been wasting time terribly lately, and the weather was now rather
better for going about than it had been since we came to the place.

We agreed to go to Fort Charlotte that morning, and see the subterranean
rooms and passage-ways, and all the underground dreariness of which we
had heard so much. The fort was built about a hundred years ago, and
has no soldiers in it. To go around and look at the old forts in this
part of the world might make a person believe the millennium had come.
They seem just about as good as ever they were, but they're all on a
peace-footing. Rectus said they were played out, but I'd rather take my
chances in Fort Charlotte, during a bombardment, than in some of the
new-style forts that I have seen in the North. It is almost altogether
underground, in the solid calcareous, and what could any fellow want
better than that? The cannon-balls and bombs would have to plow up about
an acre of pretty solid rock, and plow it deep, too, before they would
begin to scratch the roof of the real strongholds of this fort. At
least, that's the way I looked at it.

We made up a party and walked over. It's at the western end of the town,
and about a mile from the hotel. Mr. and Mrs. Chipperton were with us,
and a lady from Chicago, and Mr. Burgan. The other yellow-legs went out
riding with his wife, but I think he wanted to go with us. The fort is
on the top of a hill, and a colored shoemaker is in command. He sits and
cobbles all day, except when visitors come, and then he shows them
around. He lighted a lamp and took us down into the dark, quiet rooms
and cells, that were cut out of the solid rock, down deep into the hill,
and it was almost like being in a coal-mine, only it was a great deal
cleaner and not so deep. But it seemed just as much out of the world. In
some of the rooms there were bats hanging to the ceilings. We didn't
disturb them. One of the rooms was called the governor's room. There
wasn't any governor there, of course, but it had been made by the jolly
old earl who had the place cut out,--and who was governor here at the
time,--as a place whe