pleasure is over. They are so plainly bent upon a sail down the Harbor,
that before they leave the car they become objects of public interest, and
are at last made to give some account of themselves.

"Going for a sail, I presume?" says a person hitherto in conversation with
the conductor. "Well, I wouldn't mind a sail myself to-day."

"Yes," answers the head of the party, "going to Gloucester."

"Guess not," says, very coldly and decidedly, one of the passengers, who
is reading that morning's "Advertiser;" and when the subject of this
surmise looks at him for explanations, he adds, "The City Council has
chartered the boat for to-day."

Upon this the excursionists fall into great dismay and bitterness, and
upbraid the City Council, and wonder why last night's "Transcript" said
nothing about its oppressive action, and generally bewail their fate. But
at last they resolve to go somewhere, and, being set down, they make up
their warring minds upon Nahant, for the Nahant boat leaves the wharf
nearest them; and so they hurry away to India Wharf, amidst barrels and
bales and boxes and hacks and trucks, with interminable string-teams
passing before them at every crossing.

"At any rate," says the leader of the expedition, "we shall see the
Gardens of Maolis,--those enchanted gardens which have fairly been
advertised into my dreams, and where I've been told," he continues, with
an effort to make the prospect an attractive one, yet not without a sense
of the meagreness of the materials, "they have a grotto and a wooden
bull."