and that we carry no dutiable wine, or beans or wood into the town.

Yet another gate, built across the narrow road between the cliff and the
river, and we enter the town. It has been raining and the cobblestones
are slippery. They shine in the gleams of pale light that come from the
top-heavy street lamps. Gargoyle water spouts drip drainage from the
gables of moss-speckled tiles.

We pass a fountain that the Romans left, and rounded arches further on
show where the hooded Moor wrote his name in masonry. Barred windows and
stone balconies projecting over the street take one's mind off the
rattling motor and cause it to wander back to times when serenading
lovers twanged guitars beneath their ladies' windows and were satisfied
with the flower that dropped from the balcony.

The streets are wet and dark now and through their narrow windings our
headlights reveal tall figures in slickers or khaki overcoats topped by
peaked felt hats with the red cords of American artillerymen. Their
identification is a surprise to the dreamer, because one rather expects
these figures to sulk in the deeper shadows and screen their dark,
bearded faces with the broad brims of black felt hats or muffle
themselves to the chin in long, flowing black cloaks that hide rapiers
and stilettos and other properties of mediaeval charm.

We dine in a room three hundred years old. The presence of our
automobile within the inner quadrangle of the ancient building jars on
the sense of fitness. It is an old convent, now occupied by irreligious
tenants on the upper three floors, restaurants and estaminets on the
lower floor. These shops open on a broad gallery, level with the
courtyard, and separated from it only by the rows of pillars that
support the arches. It extends around the four sides of the court.

Centuries ago shrouded nuns, clasping beads or books of office, walked
in uncommunicative pairs and mumbled their daily prayers beneath these
time-worn arches, and to-night it affords a promenade for officers
waiting for their meals to be served at madame's well laid tables
within.

Madame's tables are not too many. There is not the space economy of an
American cafe, where elbows interlock and waiters are forced to navigate
fearsome cargoes above the diners' heads. Neither is there the
unwholesome, dust-filled carpet of London's roast beef palaces.

Madame's floor is bare, but the wood has stood the scrubbings of years,
and is as spotless as gras