One of the advantages of Sandybank Cottage was that from its proximity to the beach you could use your bedroom as a bathing machine, assume your marine costume therein, skip across the lawn, and be into the water with a hop and a jump.
It was simply delightful, really almost too good to be true, as my wife had said.
We all had a glorious bathe and a scamper on the sands, and then trooped up to the cottage to dress. As we came up over the lawn I was surprised to see a great heap of luggage, and two bicycles, lying around, evidently all just discharged from a couple of retreating carriages.
"IT WAS LUDICROUS STANDING THERE IN A BATHING SUIT."
I am an unusually modest man, and it was rather over-facing. There were several ladies in the party and an elderly gentleman. They all turned and watched our advent. The ladies looked put out at something. I feared it might be at myself in my bathing costume. However, my foot was on my native heath, so to speak, which was more than could be said of theirs, so I put on as bold a face as could legitimately be expected of a modest man in nothing but a bathing costume, and went forward. The old gentleman also seemed disturbed, but he disguised his feelings to the best of his power, and addressed me suavely.
"Been enjoying a last bathe?" he asked.
There was just a hint of "What the deuce do you mean by it, sir?" in his tone.
"I beg your pardon?" I said.
"Couldn't refrain from one more dip, I suppose?" he said again, with a forced smile. "Might I ask what time you are leaving? We understood—"