We went down Under the Sea, and were introduced to horrific monsters, sailed up and down on switchbacks, which made Mrs. Ess Kay ill, but she nobly refused to desert me in such surroundings--a state of mind which made her chin look incredibly square. Eventually, after many adventures by the way, we arrived at the Moon, and not only got into the middle of it, but made acquaintance with the inhabitants, none of whom appeared to be over two feet high, or to have anything to speak of between their chins and their toes. After that experience, minstrel shows and concerts, and persons who told your fortunes with snakes, or ate glass, were rather an anticlimax; still, I enjoyed them all so much that I was incapable of extreme annoyance when we discovered that _The Evening Bat_ had an "impressionist sketch" of me which made me look like an elderly murderess. We got back to New York almost indecently late, but in the meaner parts through which we had to pass on the way to our gorgeousness the streets swarmed with poor creatures, pallid with heat, evidently preparing to camp out of doors till morning. It was a strange and interesting sight, but made me feel guilty when I recalled it afterwards in my great cool bedroom, with my five different kinds of baths. Next morning I was waked early to find more presents of flowers in huge stacks, and to get ready for West Point. I was a little tired from yesterday, and the dry heat gave me rather the sensation of being a scientist's field mouse in a vacuum, so that I should have dreaded even a short journey if we hadn't been making it by water. It was even better than if we had been ordinary tourists on one of the big Hudson River boats I had heard about, for we were to travel luxuriously in a little steam yacht of Potter's, which he calls "The Poached Egg" because it can't be beaten. It is not a vulgar yacht, as one might have thought from the name, but a dainty thing that ought to have been "The Butterfly," "Ye White Ladye," or something of that sort. When I said so, Mr. Parker insisted that he would at once re-christen her "Lady Betty," which would have a prettier meaning than anything else; and then I was sorry I'd spoken. I had expected to be disappointed in the river, because nearly everybody I met on board ship tried to impress upon me that we had nothing half so good in England; while as for the Rhine, it wasn't a patch on the Hudson. I even wanted to be disappointed, out of patriotism or spite, which are much the same thing sometimes; but I couldn't. I found the Hudson too grand for petty jealousy. It seemed to me like a great, noble poem, rolling on and on in splendid cadences; and I have heard some music of Wagner's that it reminded me of, somehow.