Excursion Day, at half past six of a summer morning! With the boat
all decked in flags and all the people in Mariposa on the wharf, and
the band in peaked caps with big cornets tied to their bodies ready
to play at any minute! I say! Don't tell me about the Carnival of
Venice and the Delhi Durbar. Don't! I wouldn't look at them. I'd shut
my eyes! For light and colour give me every time an excursion out of
Mariposa down the lake to the Indian's Island out of sight in the
morning mist. Talk of your Papal Zouaves and your Buckingham Palace
Guard! I want to see the Mariposa band in uniform and the Mariposa
Knights of Pythias with their aprons and their insignia and their
picnic baskets and their five-cent cigars!

Half past six in the morning, and all the crowd on the wharf and the
boat due to leave in half an hour. Notice it!--in half an hour.
Already she's whistled twice (at six, and at six fifteen), and at any
minute now, Christie Johnson will step into the pilot house and pull
the string for the warning whistle that the boat will leave in half
an hour. So keep ready. Don't think of running back to Smith's Hotel
for the sandwiches. Don't be fool enough to try to go up to the Greek
Store, next to Netley's, and buy fruit. You'll be left behind for
sure if you do. Never mind the sandwiches and the fruit! Anyway,
here comes Mr. Smith himself with a huge basket of provender that
would feed a factory. There must be sandwiches in that. I think I can
hear them clinking. And behind Mr. Smith is the German waiter from
the caff with another basket--indubitably lager beer; and behind him,
the bar-tender of the hotel, carrying nothing, as far as one can see.
But of course if you know Mariposa you will understand that why he
looks so nonchalant and empty-handed is because he has two bottles of
rye whiskey under his linen duster. You know, I think, the peculiar
walk of a man with two bottles of whiskey in the inside pockets of a