And thus ends the Frenchman's story. ALL BAGGAGE AT THE RISK OF THE OWNER. A STORY OF THE WATERING-PLACES. "Water, water, every where, And not a drop to drink!" I could never understand why we call our summer resorts _Watering-Places_. I am but an individual, quite anonymous, as you see, and only graduated this summer, yet I have "known life," and there was no fool of an elephant in our college town, and other towns and cities where I have passed vacations. Now, if there have been any little anti-Maine-Law episodes in my life, they have been my occasional weeks at the Watering-Places. It was only this summer, as I was going down the Biddle staircase at Niagara, that Keanne, who was just behind me, asked quietly, and in a wondering tone, "Why do cobblers drive the briskest trade of all, from Nahant to Niagara?" I was dizzy with winding down the spiral stairs, and gave some philosophical explanation, showing up my political economy. But when in the evening, at the hotel, he invited me to accompany him in an inquiry into the statistics of cobblers, I understood him better. So far from being Watering-Places, it is clear that there is not only a spiritual but a sentimental intoxication at all these pleasant retreats. There is universal exhilaration. Youth, beauty, summer, money, and moonlight conspire to make water, or any thing of which water is a type, utterly incredible. There is no practical joke like that of asking a man if he came to Saratoga to drink the waters. Every man justly feels insulted by such a suspicion. "Am I an invalid, sir? Have I the air of disease, I should like to know?" responds Brummell, fiercely, as he turns suddenly round from tying his cravat, upon which he has lavished all his genius, and with which he hoped to achieve successes. "Do I look weak, sir? Why the deuce should you think I came to Saratoga to drink the waters?" At Niagara it is different. There you naturally speak of water--over your champagne or chambertin at dinner; and at evening you take a little tipple to protect yourself against the night air as you step out to survey the moonlight effects of the cataract. You came professedly to see the water. There is nothing else to see or do there, but to look at the falls, eat dinner, drink cobblers, and smoke. If you have any doubt upon this point, run up in the train and see. I think you will find people doing those things and nothing else. I am not sure, indeed, but you will find some young ladies upon the piazza overhanging the rapids, rapt and fascinated by the delirious dance of the water beneath, who add a more alluring terror to the weird awe that the cataract inspires, by wild tales of ghosts and midnight marvels, which, haply, some recent graduate more frightfully emphasizes by the ready coinage of his brain.