Finding that we had made all our arrangements, and had actually signed and sealed the bond, and delivered ourselves over into the hands of the "P'm'thians," our friends, who, as we subsequently ascertained, had never been near the place, or, if they had, had been there at a hopelessly wrong time, and had pitched their tents in an utterly wrong quarter, made ill-disguised attempts at speaking gently and kindly of "P'm'th," allowing that possibly "it might not, at this time of year, be so hot as had been represented,"—a theory which, like one recently put forward by a tender-hearted theologian, was immediately placed in the Index Expurgatorius by the Inevitable Uncompromising One who professed a thorough knowledge of the climate, and who asserted that in this particular year, when the Summer had been abnormally hot and was going to be more abnormally hot than ever, we should find "P'm'th" absolutely unbearable.
But, as the adventurous hero of "Excelsior" would listen to nobody, so I (representing "we") refused to hear the prognosticators of woe, and adhered manfully to my purpose. In the very hottest season, when the thermometer in every London house went so high that it had to be deluged with wholesome antiseptic Condyment, and doors and windows were everywhere left open so as to obtain a through draught,—for people lived on draughts of all sorts in those doggiest of dog-days and on little else,—we, that is all the Crusoes, were seated in our garden looking on to the heather and the sea, open to all the winds of heaven—and getting one of them, the south-east, blowing softly and sweetly across our south-western height. Gracefully and gratefully we arose to play tennis, and sat down again after the evening meal to take our coffee and cigarettes. Bless thee, P'm'th! thou art delicious! thou art refreshing! Hot in the hottest August ever known thou certainly art, that is, at midday, down in your valley and your town! But up above on the Western Heights, looking across an expanse of purple and yellow, uninclosed by firs, pines, or larches, on to the broad expanse of the deep blue sea, thou art all my fancy painted thee, thou art cucumbery in thy coolness! and as I think of Royat and Aix-les-Bains I smile a smile of gentle pitying wonder, and almost feel inclined to piously pray for all poor bodies suffering from the canicular heat, whether London doth still hold them in its toils, or stifling, smelling Continental cities, are causing them to sigh for the balmy breezes of Old England.
Thus then is it that "P'm'th"—that is "Pinemouth" in its abbreviated form—is the place about which, as being comparatively unknown at this season of the year, I beg to offer to Mr. Punch, and through him to the world at large, for the ultimate benefit of way-worn travellers, a few notes representing an uncommonly pleasant experience, which, by the kind permission of "Mr. P'n'h" aforesaid, shall be "continued in our next" by
"The Man in the South."
A WORD TO THE WEATHERWISE.
[Sir John Bridge: Don't you think there is a great deal of chance as to the weather we are to have to-morrow? Mr. Muir Mackenzie: No. Sir John Bridge: The mass of mankind think there is. Mr. Muir Mackenzie: Unfortunately the mass of mankind are very ignorant.—Bow Street Police Court, Wednesday, September 6.]
Oh, Mr. Muir Mackenzie! we're right glad
To hear this news of meteorology.
Farewell to all the many doubts we've had,