"L'ENTENTE CORDIALE"
A Sketch on the Normandy Coast.
REGRETS EN ROUTE
(By our Blasé Contributor)
That I missed so many chances of doing something more or less novel on the continent.
That I did not try a cup of coffee on Dover Pier before starting for Calais.
That I avoided the smoke-room when the steamboat passed through a choppy sea mid-Channel.
That I did not "declare" something to the douane, to see what would come of it.
That I did not stay a day at St. Pol, and then take the slow train to Boulogne, stopping an hour or so at each of the interim stations.
That I did not go to a third-rate hotel on the wrong side of the Seine to find out what it was like.
That I didn't do the Bois de Boulogne in a fog.
That I left Paris without seeing Père-la-Chaise in a Scotch mist.
That I did not ride a horse in Venice.
That I neglected to spend a couple of days in the Catacombs in Rome.
That I refused to picnic on the top of the Tower of Pisa under an umbrella.
That I neglected to return to Marseilles by a cargo-boat.
That I followed no system at Monte Carlo.
That I went out in summer clothing at Nice.
That I took the train up the Rhine instead of one of the lumbering steam-boats.
That I overslept myself at the summit of the Rigi, instead of catching cold under a blanket.
That I followed the system of Mark Tapley without attempting cheerfulness.
Finally, that when I was in Japan, I did not save myself further boredom by personally patronising "the happy despatch."