absolutely nothing to do. As if glad of an occupation, they gathered around the tricycle and examined it with their eyes and hands; and while a waiter in a café bestirred himself to overcharge us, and a man in a cake-shop, with unlooked-for energy, sold us his stalest cakes, they even went so far as to roll it up and down to test the tyres.—Nor was this curious idle crowd to be got rid of so long as we were in La Charité, and our stay there was not short; for as we followed the
windings of the street, just as it widened into a Place before turning to take a straight course towards the river, we came out upon the old church doorway, its countless niches empty, or filled with headless statues. Grass-grown steps led up to it, and one tall tower, with carven decorations half effaced, but rows of low arcades uninjured, rose at its side from the top of a small house; on its lowest arch was a staring announcement of Le Petit Journal. But of church walls, or of door to open or close, there was no sign. The arched entrance gave admittance into a large court. We stopped at the opposite corner, and J—— had his sketch-book out in a minute, to the evident satisfaction of the people. But a woman from a near café, as idle but more friendly than the rest, came over to say it was a pity Monsieur could not get a photograph of the ruin; a photograph was so much prettier than a drawing. J——jumped at this sensible suggestion, and she sent him to a notary on the fourth floor of a house in a back street. But this gentleman was out; and as the photographer of La Charité, apparently, was the last person to be applied to, J—— had to content himself with a sketch after all.—While he was at work the same woman, whose only duty seemed to be to do us the honours of the place, showed me the old church.
When I went back J—— was still struggling with the sketch, and with small boys who could not keep their hands off the machine. Women stood around him in a semicircle, passing a baby, which they called cher petit chiffon, from one to the other, and only leaving space for an inner ring of workmen. Before I heard the words of the latter
I knew by their gestures they were discussing the famous velocipede with the tall wheels.—We asked them about the race won by the Englishman.—It was no great thing, one said. The weather had been against it, and there was not much of the world there. Some people started to come from other countries in the cars. But the porters and conductors told them there were no races at La Charité, and so they went on or back, he was not sure which. The Englishman had gone away again, he did not know where.—I suppose the mistake was natural. Few tourists who travel by rail stop at La Charité, though it is a pretty town, as Mr. Evelyn says.
