They are cheap. You get commutation tickets for very little, and all day long coasters are loading their sleds on the little shelved flatcar, piling themselves into the coach, then at the top snatching off their sleds to go whooping away down the long track to the lower station. Coasters get killed now and then, and are always getting damaged in one way and another; for the track skirts deep declivities, and there are bound to be slips in steering, and collisions. We might have stayed longer and tried it again, but we were still limping from our first experiment. Besides, we were not dressed for the real thing. Dress may not make the man, but it makes the sportsman.
Part II
MOTORING THROUGH THE GOLDEN AGE
Chapter I
THE NEW PLAN
But with the breaking out of the primroses and the hint of a pale-green beading along certain branches in the hotel garden, the desire to be going, and seeing, and doing; to hear the long drowse of the motor and look out over the revolving distances; to drop down magically, as it were, on this environment and that—began to trickle and prickle a little in the blood, to light pale memories and color new plans.
We could not go for a good while yet. For spring is really spring in Switzerland—not advance installments of summer mixed with left-overs from winter, but a fairly steady condition of damp coolness—sunlight that is not hot, showers that are not cold—the snow on the mountainsides advancing and retreating—sometimes, in the night, getting as low down as Chardonne, which is less than half an hour's walk above the hotel.