Page:Six months in Kansas.djvu/28

24 mind with the murder of Lovejoy, twenty years since.

From the cars, we were transferred to a steamer, plying between Alton and St. Louis, twenty miles distant; thence to a carriage waiting on a muddy levee for us, under a driving rain; thence to a hotel. We were all very much in the condition of David Copperfield, when Mr. Dick suggested a "bath." And after securing a chamber, the next request was for the use of a bathing-room, which the house unfortunately did not possess. Water, however, was brought in abundance. Already the anticipated treat was prepared for, when, imagine the astonishment with which we witnessed the dropping into the basin a liquid precisely the color of dirty soap-suds! What was to be done? I sat down to decide which was the dirtiest, we three-days travellers in the heat and dust, or this -forlorn dip from the Mississippi. As if to help me to a *right decision, I went to the bowl and took a new survey. The liquid had certainly settled; the mud was not more than a finger deep at the bottom, and the basin was large. Now, then, I poured it off as care-