"The man's a marvel," said Suzanne. "What frocks shall I pack for the week-end?"
"We return before nightfall," I replied.
Next day I sought Suzanne at the appointed hour and station. She had taken my words literally and was steadfastly occupying the automatic weighing machine, with her back impassively turned upon an indignant youth who was itching to gamble a penny on the chance of guessing his avoirdupois. Quietly I crept behind her and placed a coin in the slot, simultaneously pressing my foot upon the platform. Suzanne gazed with mingled horror and fascination at the mounting indicator, and at sixteen stone jumped off with a gasp on to my disengaged foot. For a few moments I could have believed that the machine had recorded the truth.
When we had both regained our composure Suzanne inquired if I had got the tickets. The moment for enlightenment had arrived.
I led her to a hoarding and placed her in front of a poster which depicted a most alluring seaside resort. The sea was of the royalest blue, the sands were a rich 22-carat; there was a cave in the left foreground, a gaily-striped tent on the right, and a tiny harbour with yacht attached in the middle distance; and, with the exception of a lady escaped from a lingerie advertisement whom vandal hands had pasted on the scene, the sole occupants of this coastal Paradise were a gentleman in over-tailored flannels, red blazer and Guards' tie who was dancing a Bacchanale with a bath-towel, a small boy who was apparently fleeing from his parent's frenzy, and a smaller girl, mostly sun-bonnet, who was nursing a jelly-fish. Beneath the picture was the legend, "You Can Let Yourself Go at Giddyville."
I looked anxiously at Suzanne as she surveyed this masterpiece.
"Well," I said at last, "isn't that the place of your dreams? It's all practically as you described it last night, and you will observe that it's by no means overcrowded."
"But what objectionable children!" said Suzanne. "I shouldn't at all care for Barbara to mix with them; and jelly-fish sting. Besides, that boat doesn't look at all safe, and the man's a bounder in every sense of the word. What's this other place?"
I was disappointed, and considered Suzanne's criticism superficial in the extreme. The next pictures showed an emerald sea and pink shore, two piers, a flock of aeroplanes, and a structure that combined the characteristic features of the Eiffel Tower and the Albert Memorial. One suspected a herd of minstrels in the distance, but here again the beach was remarkably and invitingly uncongested. A solitary barefooted maiden communing with a crustacean rather caught my fancy, but it didn't need the angle of Suzanne's nose to tell me that "Puddlesey for Pleasure" was a wash-out; frankly, it was too good to believe that all the holiday-makers but one were content to patronise either the piers or the aeroplanes or the hidden attractions of the architectural outrage, and to leave the beach so desirably vacant.