Page:My father as I recall him (IA cu31924013473610).djvu/89

 sure that in many places during his travels my father was looked upon as an amiable maniac with a penchant for washing.

During his first visit to America, while he was making some journey in a rather rough and uncomfortable canal boat, he wrote: "I am considered very hardy in the morning, for I run up barenecked and plunge my head into the half-frozen water by half-past five o'clock. I am respected for my activity, inasmuch as I jump from the boat to the towing path, and walk five or six miles before breakfast, keeping up with the horses all the time." And from Broadstairs: "In a bay window sits, from nine o'clock to one, a gentleman with rather long hair and no neckcloth, who writes and grins as if he thought he were very funny, indeed. At one o'clock he disappears, presently emerges from a bathing machine, and may be seen a kind of salmon-colored porpoise, splashing about in the ocean. After that, he may be viewed in another bay window on the ground floor,