accepting even such humble efforts to please as if they had
been successes. The Cliquot was good, and I drank no other wine, though
various flasks with tempting titles stood around me.

Dinner over and coffee served, I asked the waiter what resources the
place possessed in the way of amusement. He looked blank and even
distressed at my question: he had all his life imagined that the Falls
sufficed for everything; he had seen the tide of travel halt there to
view them for years. Since he was a boy, he had never ceased to witness
the yearly recurring round of tourists who came to see, and sketch, and
scribble about them, and so he faintly muttered out a remonstrance,--

"Monsieur has not yet visited the Falls."

"The Falls! why, I see them from this, and if I open the window I am
stunned with their uproar."

I was really sorry at the pain my hasty speech gave him, for he looked
suddenly faint and ill, and after a moment gasped out,--

"But monsieur is surely not going away without a visit to the cataract?
The guide-books give two hours as the very shortest time to see it
effectually."

"I only gave ten minutes to Niagara, my good friend," said I, "and would
not have spared even that, but that I wanted to hold a sprained ankle
under the fall."

He staggered, and had to hold a chair to support himself.

"There is, besides, the Laufen Schloss--"

"As to castles," broke I in, "I have no need to leave my own to see all
that mediaeval architecture can boast. No, no," sighed I out, "if I am
to have new sensations, they must come through some other channel than
sight. Have you no theatre?"

"No, sir. None."

"No concert-rooms, no music-garden?"

"None, sir."

"Not even a circus?" said I, peevishly.

"There was, sir, but it was not attended. The strangers all come to see
the Falls."

"Confound the Falls! And what became of the circus?"

"Well, they made a bad business of it; got into debt on all sides, for
oil, and forage, and printing placards, and so on, and then they beat
a sudden retreat one night, and slipped off, all but two, and, indeed,
they were about the best of the company; but somehow they lost their
way in the forest, and instead of coming up with their companions, found
themselves at daybreak at the outside of the town."

"And these two unlucky ones, what were they?"

"One was the chief clown, sir, a German, and the other was a little
girl, a Moor they call her; but the cleverest creature to r