but frolicsome party of them on top of the Washington monument, "heaved
a sigh " from their whistles, at a comrade passing along the street
below, when a corpulent policeman, naturally mistaking it for a signal
from a brother "cop," hastened to climb the five hundred feet or thereabouts
of ascent up the monument. When he arrived, puffing and perspiring, to
the summit, and discovered his mistake, the wheelmen say he made such
awful use of the Queen's English that the atmosphere had a blue, sulphurous
tinge about it for some time after. Leaving Buffalo next morning I pass
through Batavia, where the wheelmen have a most aesthetic little club-room.
Besides being jovial and whole-souled fellows, they are awfully sesthetic;
and the sweetest little Japanese curios and bric-d-brac decorate the
walls and tables. Stopping over night at LeBoy, in company with the
president and captain of the LeBoy Club, I visit the State fish-hatchery
at Mumford next morning, and ride on through the Genesee Valley, finding
fair roads through the valley, though somewhat hilly and stony toward
Canandaigua. Inquiring the best road to Geneva I am advised of the
superiority of the one leading past the poor-house. Finding them somewhat
intricate, and being too super-sensitive to stop people and ask them the
road to the poor-house, I deservedly get lost, and am wandering erratically
eastward through the darkness, when I fortunately meet a wheelman in a
buggy, who directs me to his mother's farm-house near by, with instructions
to that most excellent lady to accommodate me for the night. Nine o'clock
next morning I reach fair Geneva, so beautifully situated on Seneca's
silvery lake, passing the State agricultural farm en route; continuing
on up the Seneca Eiver, passing-through Waterloo and Seneca Falls to
Cayuga, and from thence to Auburn and Skaneateles, where I heave a sigh
at the thoughts of leaving the last - I cannot say the loveliest, for all
are equally lovely - of that beautiful chain of lakes that transforms
this part of New York State into a vast and delightful summer resort.