the things.
They aren't _there_. Left behind at Dover probably. Wire for them at
once. No idea how difficult it was to describe luggage vividly and
yet economically till I tried. However, it will be sent on by the next
boat, and arrive some time in the evening, so it's of no consequence.
Now for the Hotel. Ask for the bus for the _Continental_. The
_Continental_ is not open yet. Very well, the _Hotel de la Plage_,
then. Closed! All the hotels facing the sea _are_, it seems.
Sympathetic Porter recommends one in the town, and promises to come
and tell me as soon as the luggage turns up.

[Illustration: "Please, de tings!"]

_At the Hotel._--Find, on getting out of the omnibus, that the Hotel
is being painted; entrance blocked by ladders and pails. Squeeze past,
and am received in the hall by the Proprietress and a German Waiter.
"Certainly they can give me a room--my baggage shall be taken up
immed--" Here I have to explain that this is impracticable, as my
baggage has unfortunately been left behind. Think I see a change in
their manner at this. A stranger who comes abroad with nothing but
a stick and an umbrella cannot _expect_ to inspire confidence, I
suppose. I remark to the Waiter that the luggage is sure to follow me
by the next boat, but it strikes even myself that I do not bring this
out with quite a sincere ring. Not at all the manner of a man who
possesses a real portmanteau. I order dinner--the kind of dinner,
I feel, that a man who did not intend to pay for it _would_ order.
I detect this impression in the Waiter's eye. If he dared, I know
he would suggest tea and a boiled egg as more seemly under the
circumstances.

_On the Digue._--Thought, it being holiday time, that there would
be more gaiety; but Ostend just now perhaps a little lacking in
liveliness--hotels, villas, and even the Kursaal all closely boarded
up with lead-coloured shutters. Only other person on Promenade a
fisher-boy scrooping over the tiles in _sabots_. I come to a glazed
shelter, and find the seats choked with drifting sand, and protected
with barbed wire. This depresses me. I did not want to sit down--but
the barbed wire _does_ seem needlessly unkind. Walk along the
sand-dunes; must pass the time somehow till dinner, and the arrival of
my luggage. Wonder whether it really _was_ labelled "Ostend." Suppose
the porter thought I said "Rochester" ... in that case--I will _not_
worry about it like this. I will go back and see the town.