THOUGH the Englishman was not on hand in the morning, Madame, all the commercial gentlemen except Mephistopheles, the waiter, and the postman, who was just then passing, stood out on the street to see us start.—We carried away from St. Just not only pleasant recollections, but a handful of sticking labels of advertisement of the Cheval Blanc, which Madame pressed upon us as she shook hands.

The first place of note was Fitz-James, labelled in the convenient French fashion, its aggressive English name as unadaptable to foreign pronunciation as is English prejudice to foreign customs. There we pushed the tricycle to the other end of the town, then up the long hill into the principal street of Clermont, to find that the hill did not end with the pavÉ. There still remained a climb of two kilometres.

From the top of the hill outside of Clermont, six kilometres into Angy, we went with feet up as fast as the clouds, now ominously black. Of such a ride what should one remember save the rapid motion through fresh green country? Before we realised our pleasure we were in Angy, and then in Mouy, which is literally next door, and where we lunched at a cafÉ with as little loss of time as possible.—We hoped to get to Paris that night. We were determined to take the train at Beaumont, since there were forty-seven kilometres of pavÉ from that town to the capital.—In our first enthusiasm, before our troubles came upon us, we had declared that nothing, not even pavÉ, would induce us to forswear sentiment and go by train. But, thanks to the few kilometres we had already bumped over, we were wiser now. All the old travellers over the post-roads complain of the pavÉ. Mr. Sterne, as at Nampont, found it a hindrance to sentiment. Before his day, Evelyn lamented that if the country, where the roads are paved with a small square freestone, “does not much molest the traveller with dirt and ill way as in England, ’tis somewhat hard to the poor horses’ feet, which causes them to ride more temperately, seldom going out of the trot, or grand pas, as they call it.”

If it is so hard to horses’ feet, fancy what it must be to the tyres of a tricycle!

No sooner were we out of the town than the rain began. At first it was but a soft light shower. But it turned into a drenching pour just as we came into a grey thatch-roofed village. We took shelter by a stone wall under a tree. A woman offered to lend us her umbrella; we could send it back the next day, she insisted. This was the most disinterested benevolence shown us throughout the journey.

Presently we set out again, but only to retreat almost at once up a little vine-covered path leading to a cottage whose owner, when he saw us, invited us indoors. It seemed useless to wait, however. We had dragged the tricycle under the vines, but the rain dripped through and made the saddles wet and slippery. We thanked him kindly, put on our gossamers, and then plodded on through the driving rain over a sticky clay road. Now,

almost blinded, we worked up long ascents between woods and fields where indefatigable sportsmen frightened what birds there were. Now we rode through deserted villages and by dreary chÂteaux.—Occasionally the rain stopped, only to begin the next second with fresh force. Against it our gossamers were of no more avail than if they had been so much paper. In half-an-hour we were uncomfortably conscious that our only dry clothes were in the bag. As misfortunes never come singly, the luggage-carrier loosened and swung around to the left of the backbone. Every few minutes J—— was down in the mud setting it straight again. The water poured in streams from our hats. With each turn of the wheels we were covered with mud.

It was in this condition we rode into the streets of Neuilly. Men and women came to their doors and laughed as we passed.—This decided us. There is nothing that chills sentiment as quickly as a drenching and ridicule. We went to the railway station, to learn there would be no train for three hours. It was simply out of the question to wait in our wet clothes for that length of time. That it never once occurred to us to stay in the town overnight shows how poorly we thought of it. Back we went through the streets, again greeted with the same heartless laughter from every side. If I were a prophet I would send an army of bears to devour the people of Neuilly.

The rain, the mud, and the luggage-carrier had it their own way the rest of the afternoon. When we could we rode as if for our lives.—But every now and again we had to stop, that J—— might unlace his boots, take them off, and let the water run out of them. Of course no one was abroad. What sane men would have dared such weather? We met but one small boy driving a big cart in a zig-zag course, particularly aggravating because we were just then on a down-grade. This was the last affront that made the rest unbearable. J—— is not a man patient of injuries.——

“Million names of the name! Little fly!” he yelled, and the boy let us pass.

—When a turn in the road brought us out on the banks of the Oise, we were so wet that a plunge in its waters could not have made us wetter.—A grey town, climbing up to a grey church, rose on the opposite banks. We supposed it must be Beaumont. But indeed its name just then mattered little. Without stopping to identify it, we crossed the bridge and got down at the first inn we came to.