e left foreground, a
gaily-striped tent on the right, and a tiny harbour with yacht attached in
the middle distance; and, with the exception of a lady escaped from a
lingerie advertisement whom vandal hands had pasted on the scene, the sole
occupants of this coastal Paradise were a gentleman in over-tailored
flannels, red blazer and Guards' tie who was dancing a Bacchanale with a
bath-towel, a small boy who was apparently fleeing from his parent's
frenzy, and a smaller girl, mostly sun-bonnet, who was nursing a
jelly-fish. Beneath the picture was the legend, "You Can Let Yourself Go at
Giddyville."

I looked anxiously at Suzanne as she surveyed this masterpiece.

"Well," I said at last, "isn't that the place of your dreams? It's all
practically as you described it last night, and you will observe that it's
by no means overcrowded."

"But what objectionable children!" said Suzanne. "I shouldn't at all care
for Barbara to mix with them; and jelly-fish sting. Besides, that boat
doesn't look at all safe, and the man's a bounder in every sense of the
word. What's this other place?"

I was disappointed, and considered Suzanne's criticism superficial in the
extreme. The next pictures showed an emerald sea and pink shore, two piers,
a flock of aeroplanes, and a structure that combined the characteristic
features of the Eiffel Tower and the Albert Memorial. One suspected a herd
of minstrels in the distance, but here again the beach was remarkably and
invitingly uncongested. A solitary barefooted maiden communing with a
crustacean rather caught my fancy, but it didn't need the angle of
Suzanne's nose to tell me that "Puddlesey for Pleasure" was a wash-out;
frankly, it was too good to believe that all the holiday-makers but one
were content to patronise either the piers or the aeroplanes or the hidden
attractions of the architectural outrage, and to leave the beach so
desirably vacant.

We passed over in eloquent silence a couple of lurid _affiches_ which
declared that "Exhampton Is So Exhilarating" (a middle-aged person in
side-whiskers and a purple bathing-suit attempting to drown his unfortunate
wife), and that "Rooksea Will Restore the Roses" (a fragile young woman in
a deck-chair being nourished out of a box of chocolates by a sentimental
ass whose attire proclaimed him a member of the local concert party). The
next scene to engage our attention was much more simple in its appeal and
striking in its effect. The sea was n