-cloth, with the ponderous rubbers over my thick boots, and had stood
around for some time, awaiting the pleasure of the very leisurely guide,
sweating at every pore, (or _nearly_ every one, for there are several
millions, I believe, and I so hate exaggeration,) and trying to evade
the glances of the amused bystanders, did I begin to realize the
enormity of the imposition that had been practised on me. Just fancy
_yourself_, Mr PUNCHINELLO, in such a costume, taking a seemingly
interminable walk in a hot sun, down ever so many steps, encased in
those nasty articles of gear, in the company of several other helpless
unfortunates, wishing with all your might yon were already there!"

"But the grandeur and glory of the adventure will console me!" I
murmured. Grandeur be hanged! A fig for the "glory!" What! do you call
this "going under the Falls,"--that renowned journey, so full of peril?
Pooh! merely standing in a bath-tub and letting somebody pull the
string! You don't get quite so wet; that's all. Where's the "danger,"
where's the "glory," of merely stepping under a little spirt from one
end of the Falls, with plenty of room to stand, and no darkness, no
mystery, no nothing. Nothing but an overwhelming sense of being a cussed
fool, and a simpleton, and a stupid, _and_ a dunce!

Oh, the going back, after that! in the same loathed costume, inwardly
justifying the laughter of the knowing loungers as you ascend among
them, and cursing yourself as the chief among ten thousand
(ninnies,)--the one altogether idiotic.

Except for this enormous swindle, dear P., I should have enjoyed
Niagara, and Niagara would doubtless have enjoyed me. But this
preposterous, disgusting, outrageous, ridiculous, contemptible,
disgraceful, _unsurpassable_ swindle prevented anything like a mutual
understanding. I saw green in the Falls, the Falls saw green in me. The
Falls kept coming down; I had already come down, (with my dollars,) and,
in fact, was perpetually descending, with sums varying from twenty-five
cents to four dollars and a half.

My sole object, friend PUNCHINELLO, in addressing you on this subject,
is to beg and beseech that you will warn the too-credulous and
too-generous public against this unmatchably atrocious swindle of Going
Under the Falls. It is too much for proud Humanity, Mr. P.! It is
crushing! It is withering! It is annihilating! What! "Annex" this fraud?
Never!--NEVER!

TUPMAN.

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