eaven only knows what would have happened to that
policeman. When I chaffed him by repeating the policeman's sally when
we were a mile away, Mac was for a moment knocked speechless with
anger, then he begged us to go back and help him find the policeman.

Having escaped the arm of the law we went for a little drive about
town, with its wonderful shops: the shops of Bournemouth are the best
I have seen in England, and are rivalled only by those of Glasgow.
Then we drew up at the best hotel in town--"The Royal Bath Hotel,"
which, with its long low facade and its lack of upper stories looked
more like a luxurious club house than a modern hotel.

The main lounge was something to marvel at. Apparently it had been
given over to a band of decorators and furnishers gone delirious, for
the evidence of their delirium was to be seen on every side. The
walls were all broken up: One wall was covered with hangings; two
parts of the remainder had an upper border of hand-painted men in
battle array; a glass wall through which the dining-room could be seen
made a third; and the fourth was occupied by a balcony from which one
descended scarlet carpeted stairways into the room.

The woodwork was a hideous golden-oak. The ceiling was broken by a
series of beams radiating unevenly from one annular space, in all
directions, and with no apparent design. The furniture was rattan and
plush, upholstered and plain, and was crowded together with a few
writing tables scattered here and there. It was a discordant orgie of
decorative effects and the result was unutterably depressing.

We sank into chairs and gazed about us in awe. No hotel had ever
affected any of us like this before. At first we talked in whispers;
then as our courage revived, we became critical. Then somebody thought
of having a "Scoot"; tremulously he pressed the button for the waiter.
The waiter came and they had two "Scoots" each. Then somebody made a
funny remark and one of us laughed out loud. Suddenly the laugher
stopped and said, "I feel as if I ought not to laugh; I feel that
nobody ever laughed in this place before."

Dinner time approached. Old ladies in wonderful dresses began to
appear, followed by old English gentlemen in dress clothes. The
dining-room began to fill up. We decided to wait till the room was
nearly full before going in so that we could get an idea of the
fashionable watering place people of England. Somebody thought that
it would be as well to reser