The driver looked pained, as if some small tatters and shreds of
conscience were flapping uncomfortably about his otherwise dismantled
spirit. Then he seemed to think of his wife and family, for he put on the
air of a man who had already made great sacrifices, and "I couldn't,
really, I couldn't afford it," said he; and as the victims turned from him
in disgust, he chirruped to his horses and drove off.

"Well," said the pleasurers, "we won't give it up. We will have our day's
pleasure after all. But what _can_ we do to kill five hours and a
half? It's miles away from everything, and, besides, there's nothing even
if we were there." At this image of their remoteness and the inherent
desolation of Boston they could not suppress some sighs, and in the mean
time Aunt Melissa stepped into the waiting-room, which opened on the
farther side upon the water, and sat contentedly down on one of the
benches; the rest, from sheer vacuity and irresolution, followed, and
thus, without debate, it was settled that they should wait there till the
boat left. The agent, who was a kind man, did what he could to alleviate
the situation: he gave them each the advertisement of his line of boats,
neatly printed upon a card, and then he went away.

All this prospect of waiting would do well enough for the ladies of the
party, but there is an impatience in the masculine fibre which does not
brook the notion of such prolonged repose; and the leader of the excursion
presently pretended an important errand up town,--nothing less, in fact,
than to buy a tumbler out of which to drink their claret on the beach. A
holiday is never like any other day to the man who takes it, and a festive
halo seemed to enwrap the excursionist as he pushed on through the busy
streets in the cool shadow of the vast granite palaces wherein the genius
of business loves to house itself in this money-making land, and inhaled