EASTER HOLIDAYS
(By One who has tried them)
Must really decide where to go for five or six days at Easter. Weather always awful. Usual Springtime. North-east wind, frost, snow and dust. Something like last week. Can't stop in London. One Sunday or Bank Holiday in London mournful enough. But four of them consecutively! Impossible!
Innocent persons go to the south coast of England, thinking that fifty miles nearer the equator one is in quite a different climate. Bournemouth? Bosh! All sandy dust and depressing invalids. Torquay? Twaddle! Probably rain all the time, if not snow. England no good. Scotland or Ireland? Worse!
Must go, as people say vaguely, "abroad." How about Paris? North-east wind, frost, snow and dust, worse than here. Streets windy, theatres draughty, cafés and restaurants suffocating. Brussels? Nothing but rain. Aix-les-Bains? Probably snow. Nice? That might do. No frost or snow, but very likely a north-east wind and certainly lots of dust. Besides, thirty hours' journey out and thirty hours' journey back, would only leave about sixty hours there. No good. Rome, Seville, Constantinople, Cairo? Still farther. Should have to leave on the return journey before I arrived. Where can I go to at Easter to be warm and comfortable, without so much trouble? I know. To bed!
Regardless of the Temperature.—Facetious Australian (off Calshot Castle, to indisposed friend). What arm of the sea reminds one of a borrowed boot?
The "I. F." (feebly). Give it—anything—up.
F. A. Why, the Sole-lent, to be sure.
[The "I. F." is promptly carried below.
At Bath.—Wiffling (sympathetically). Here on account of the waters?
Piffling. No, unhappily. Here on account of the whiskies.
"A Question of the Hour."—Asking a railway porter the time of the next train's departure for your holiday resort.
Scene—The Summit of Vesuvius
American Tourist (to the world at large). "Great snakes, it reminds me of hell!"
English Tourist. "My dear, how these Americans do travel!"
Friend (below). "All you've got to do when I throw you the rope is to make it fast to that projection over your head, and lower yourself down!"
