io8 



RECREA TION. 



day paper and to see how the excise laws 

 are enforced in that interesting hamlet. 



By some of the pirates it is insinuated 

 that the chief attraction up the river is not 

 the 3 given above, but the presence of 

 several pairs of bright eyes, which have 

 been located on previous trips. 



This suggestion is treated with the silent 

 scorn it merits, and the 2 push off, to re- 

 turn 4 hours later with the Sunday papers 

 still unopened. Barber shops you know are 

 crowded, too, on Sunday mornings. 



At dinner Paresis distinguishes himself 

 by sitting down on a particularly promis- 

 ing looking flapjack and is called to order 

 by the others. " If he is too luxurious to 

 sit on the ground why does he not invest 

 in an air-cushion? " asks the man who 

 cooked the jack. 



Whereupon Paresis carefully removes it 

 from his knickerbockers, with his sheath- 

 knife, and politely hands the cake to its 

 owner with the soothing remark that, " It 

 will probably taste better than it looks." 

 What the owner says in reply is entirely 

 out of keeping with the sacredness of the 

 day; and to calm his ruffled feelings one 

 of the crowd sings, 



u There are flies in the butter 

 And bugs in the jam 

 But as we are camping 

 We don't care a — bit." 



" If you misguided individuals would 

 talk less and eat more," observes Grouty, 

 " there wouldn't be such an awful lot of 

 truck to take back to the boat-house, and 

 the janitor's family would not be as sick 

 as they were last week." 



" That wasn't owing to the quantity, but 

 to quality," says the Hoodoo, with his 

 mouth full. " They tackled some of the 

 cheese that the kerosene oil spilled on, and 

 it nearly killed them." 



" I wonder if experentia will docet," 

 thoughtfully inquires Paresis. 



" Experience has taught me that an ice 



barge is a good thing to tie to," says 

 Grouty, " and there's a lot of them about 

 2 miles up the river." 



With a rush the Hoboken crowd are 

 packing up and soon their canoes are out 

 in the river and waiting for the tow to 

 approach. 



Being left alone Paresis and the Microbe 

 also prepare to depart; waiting until the 

 tide has changed so as to get through that 

 abomination, the railroad bridge across the 

 Spuyten Duyvil creek. The precious light 

 is placed on the bow of the Microbe's 

 canoe and just as the dusk falls, the camp 

 is deserted for another week. 



Arriving at the boat-housej_the canoes 

 are placed in the racks and the dunnage 

 stowed. 



Then the Microbe makes an examination 

 of the internal structure of one of Tommy's 

 prehistoric piers, and Paresis wanders 

 around the float, gazing in silent rapture 

 at the rising moon, for he is a lover of 

 nature, is Paresis — providing the fair sex 

 be absent. His homage to Diana is so de- 

 voted that a banana peel on the float es- 

 capes his eyes but not his feet, and over the 

 edge he goes, with a gentle splash, into 2 

 feet of river mud. 



"You have a soft berth, Paresis," ob- 

 served the Microbe, as he approaches. 

 " Do you intend making a night of it? " 



Paresis looks around for a rock, but they 

 have all sunk deeper in the ooze than he 

 cares to dive; so the Microbe is safe, for 

 the time being. 



The rescue is effected with much effort 

 and a boat hook, to the detriment of 

 Paresis's new knickerbockers. Then Pa- 

 resis starts for home, looking so much 

 like a cross between a house breaker and 

 a tramp, that 2 policemen compel him to 

 give an account of himself before turning 

 him loose on a sleeping and helpless public. 



" As if any thief, with the ability to crack 

 a meat safe, would go around looking 

 thus," mutters Paresis, wrathfully, as he 

 kicks his own watch dog into silence and 

 shuts the hall door on its tail. 



IN MEXICO. 



ED. WILLIAMS. 



On reaching town last Sunday I received 

 the August Recreation, the first copy I 

 have ever seen. The only fault I find with 

 it is, there is not enough of it. What strikes 

 me most favorably is that in it, everybody 

 has his say. Hunting is my business, 

 mixed up with trading in products of the 

 hunt, and, as is natural, it interests me to 

 follow the hunt of the moose, elk and other 



animals of the North, in your pages. I will 

 do my best to make returns for the pleasure 

 received, by describing the hunt, in this lo- 

 cality, of the jaguar, alligator, etc. 



This section was until lately the paradise 

 of such " varments," but the egret and 

 heron hunters have penetrated the inner- 

 most recesses of the dismal swamps, and 

 with the " boom, boom " of their shot guns 



