The Cravate au Moulin.
The Uncertain Bather.—My acquaintance Mordel is another variety of the genus baigneur. He is dissatisfied only with himself. He is perpetually having a row with himself. The Hotel is good enough, he says; the Doctor is all that can be desired. The baths and waters are managed very well; but the question is, he says to himself, "Was I right in coming here at all? Ought I not to have gone to Aix? or to Vichy? or to Homburg? or to Mont Dore, or to La Bourboule?" "Well, but"—I say to him, with a view to reconciling him to himself—"are the waters doing you good?" He reluctantly admits that they are not doing him any harm—as yet. In this state of uncertainty he remains during the whole course of treatment, and, to the last, he is of opinion that he ought to have gone to some other place, no matter where.
It is a real pleasure to see Smith, of the Colosseum Club, meet Brown, also a member of the same sociable institution. He greets Brown heartily,—never was so glad to see anybody. Yet they are anything but inseparables in London; and it certainly was not owing to Smith's good offices that Brown was elected to the Colosseum. Brown has just arrived at Royat, and is not so effusive at the sight of Smith, as Smith, who has been here ten days, is on beholding Brown. "Thompson's here, so's Jones," Smith tells Brown, beamingly. "Are they?" returns Brown, who recognises the names as those of eminent Colosseum men. "And now," exclaims Smith, heartily, "in the evening we can have a rubber!" This was why Smith was so overjoyed at meeting Brown; not because he was an old friend, not even because he was a member of the same social set, but because he would make a fourth! "You'll want a rubber," adds Smith, cajolingly. "If he does," interposes Puller, in excellent spirits this morning, "he'll have to go to Aix-les-Bains. They don't do the massage here. Aix is the place for Rubbers." The joke falls among us like a bombshell, and the group disperses, each wondering how long Puller is going to remain at Royat. His movements may govern our own!
Uneventful! General Boulanger has called here to-day. No, not on me, but on a noble English poet, who is staying at the Continental. From the portrait in the Salon I should have expected a fine fellow of six feet high, rather Saxon and swaggery. Had he resembled his portrait I should not have believed in him. Now I do. There is hope for Boulanger. He is a short man. Napoleon was a short man. "Il grandira!"
Encore des Pensées.—"There is a time to talk, and a time to be silent." The first occasion is, when I have something to say, and an audience to say it to; the other is, when I don't feel well, and hate everybody equally. Puller, when high-spirited, cannot understand this. Undergoing these Royat Waters, Puller and myself are on a see-saw. When he is up, I am down, and vice versâ. After trying to breakfast together, and to be mutually accommodating, which is done in the most disagreeable manner possible, we separate, on account of incompatibility of temper. Temporarily our relations are strained. This only applies to the morning. I want to be quiet in the morning, and detest early liveliness. Jane and myself, in future, breakfast together at our own time, and at our own table, in a corner. (And this is also within the first seven days of the traitement.)