Middle-aged Novice. "I'm just off for a Tour in the Country—'biking' all the way. It'll be Four Weeks before I'm back in my Flat again."
Candid Friend. "Ah! Bet it won't be Four Hours before you're Flat on your Back again!"
ROUNDABOUT READINGS.
I am at Davos. Be careful about the pronunciation: put the accent broadly on the second syllable, and you have it. With me, if I may say so, it is a case of Davos non vobis, for I have come here not for my own health, but to act as travelling-companion to one of the best fellows in the world, who seeks health and strength in this quiet and beautiful valley. God be with him, and with all his fellow-sufferers here. Here are some notes taken on the way.
Hall of the Grosvenor Hotel, 10.30 A.M.—A mixed crowd of anxious French and English people: a sprinkling of Americans. Desperate inquiries from an elderly French lady for her box. A moment ago the box was visible, a monumental box peacefully reposing near the door. Now it has vanished. Is the box to be added to the questions pending between France and England? No; it is found—on a truck. The French Ambassador may rest in peace. On a sofa reclines a magnificent Arab, tall, stately, bronzed, aquiline, robed in a waving burnous and a turban of dazzling white. How he casts our puny, ditto-suited, cloth-capped civilisation into the shade. An almost irresistible impulse comes over me to change my ticket, break every tie and make a dash with him for his native desert, to live a free and untrammelled life, to head a successful insurrection against the French oppressor, to be laid after death in a splendid tomb with a cupola amidst the lamentations of thousands of lithe and dusky warriors.
11 A.M.—We are off; handshakings, wavings of handkerchiefs. Still dreaming of Algeria, I am recalled to actuality by a stoppage at Herne Hill.
Calais.—The home of the demi-poulet, not forgetting the flageolet. Perpetual entrances of imperturbable officials with chorus "Les voyageurs pour...." Consequent series of shocks inimical to quiet eating. At last our turn comes. Each of us has bagged a demi-poulet in record time. Why all this hurry? At any rate we are off.