A LONG, ugly, stupid street leads to the principal Place of Cosne. Its pavÉ is surely the vilest to be found in all the length and breadth of France.—When we came into the town it was full of slouchy, disorderly soldiers. We pushed the tricycle to the HÔtel d’Etoile, which the commercial gentlemen of St. Just had praised. We should forget the miseries of the day over a good dinner.—The landlady came to the door and looked at us. She had no room, she declared, and could do nothing for us. Her house was full of officers and gentlemen. J—— asked what other hotel she would recommend.

She pointed to an auberge across the street. It was small and mean, with soldiers standing in the doorway and at the windows. She could not in words have said more plainly what she thought of us.——

Was there a table d’hÔte over there?

She did not know, with an indifferent shrug of her shoulders.

If we could not sleep in the Etoile, could we eat in it?

“No, that is altogether impossible,” and she turned her back upon us and went into the house.

—I could have cried in my disappointment.

The landlady of the Grand Cerf received us with smiles.——

Had we both travelled on that one little velocipede?

—But J—— was in no humour for compliments.——

Could she give us a room?

There was not one in the house, she said; these autumn manoeuvres had brought so many people to town. She had just that moment given up hers to two gentlemen who had telegraphed that they would arrive by a late train, and she and her daughter must spend the night in a friend’s house.

—She must have seen the despair in our eyes, for, before we had time to speak, she added, that she would send to a neighbour’s to see what could be done for us there.

Her messenger, however, came back to say there was not one room to spare. But suddenly, with a happy inspiration, the landlady bade us come in, and suggested that if we were willing to wait, and would be satisfied with makeshifts, she could put up two beds in a small dining-room so soon as dinner was over.—Makeshifts indeed! She was offering luxuries.——

In the meantime, since the two gentlemen had not arrived, we could use her room to prepare for dinner.

—Though the Grand Cerf was not the commercial house of Cosne, it was that night full of commercial gentlemen, ready for friendly talk. After dinner in its cafÉ J—— asked the waiter what there was in the town?——

“Mais, Monsieur, there are many officers and soldiers.”

That was not what he meant, J—— explained. Was there a castle or a fine church, for example?

—At this point the commercial gentlemen at the nearest table made bold to interfere. There was nothing in Cosne, they said, and were for sending us off on a castle hunt to Touraine at once. They had the map out in a trice, and during the next few minutes sent us flying from one end of it to the other.——

They will give us no rest, thought I.

—But presently one of the company asked how we liked Paris compared to London?——

“London is a great town, is it not?” said he, looking to us for support, so that we could do no less than agree with him. “But then, if you want coffee or something else to drink on the Sunday, what is to be done? Syrups are sold in the pharmacy, and the pharmacy is closed. The beer-houses are shut till one, and even after that hour, you go in, you are asked what you will have, the beer or the brandy is poured out, you drink it, and then you go at once. It is always like this, every day. You drink and you go.”

“But that it is bizarre!” said a young man opposite, who had never been in England.

“I think well that it is bizarre!” continued the other; “but you do not know what it is to live there in a family hotel. No shops are open the Sunday, and the landlady must buy everything the Saturday. What does she do? She buys a piece of rosbif. She gives it to you hot the Saturday, and cold for breakfast, dinner, and supper the Sunday; and the butcher, he never brings fresh meat the Monday, and you eat your rosbif cold again for dinner. And then you have a gooseberry tart. My God, how it sticks to your teeth! It is like this one eats in England.”

“It is not astonishing,” thought a serious, elderly gentleman on his right, “that the rich English come to France to dine.”

—At an early hour we went to the room which the landlady promised should be ours once dinner was well over.—The beds were not yet made, though mattresses and bedclothes were piled in one corner. The landlord and a lady and gentleman we had seen at the table d’hÔte sat by a table. They invited us politely to be seated.——

“I should like to go to bed,” said I, in the language of our country.

“We cannot send them away,” said J——.

—And so, making the best of the matter, we sat down with them, and talked about travelling and Italy and snoring and velocipedes and Mount Vesuvius, and, I think, of some other things which I have forgotten.—Monsieur and Madame, who had voyaged much, also urged a journey to Touraine to see the castles.——

“Bother the castles,” thought I to myself.

“Hang ’em,” said J—— audibly, but in American.

—But the landlady, just then coming in, asked if we should like to see our room.——

“It is here,” said we.

“It is on the other side of the hall,” said the landlady, and she led the way without more ado. “See the two little iron beds,” she cried on the threshold, “and the tiny toilet table! ’Tis like a prison cell;” and nothing would please her but she must bring Monsieur and Madame and her husband and daughter to look.

—In the morning, in her bill, however, it was no longer a prison cell, but a best bedchamber. But if a Good Samaritan does overcharge you, what can you do?