Never say die. The dear little fellow! What job had he captured for me?
An offer to work in a factory at Gretna Green, wages to commence at 17s.
6d. per week.
H'm.
The remuneration was not on a princely scale, but I like to think that
it included the free use of the lavatory, if there happened to be one on
the premises.
So luck pursued me to the end, though it never quite caught me up. For
bags were packed, and tickets taken. And therefore:
"What did you do in the Great War, grandpapa?"
"I loafed, my boy."
"That was naughty, grandpapa."
"Naughty, but nice...."
ALONE
Mentone
Italiam petimus....
Discovered, in a local library--a genuine old maid's library: full of
the trashiest novels--those two volumes of sketches by J. A. Symonds,
and forthwith set to comparing the Mentone of his day with that of ours.
What a transformation! The efforts of Dr. James Henry Bennet and
friends, aided and abetted by the railway, have converted the idyllic
fishing village into--something different. So vanishes another fair spot
from earth. And I knew it. Yet some demon has deposited me on these
shores, where life is spent in a round of trivialities.
One fact suffices. Symonds, driving over from Nice, at last found
himself at the door of "the inn." The inn.... Are there any inns left at
Mentone?
A propos of inns, here is a suggestive state of affairs. At the present
moment, twenty-two of the principal hotels and pensions of Mentone are
closed, because owned or controlled or managed by Germans.
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