heard people chattering French quite as a matter of
course to each other, and I liked the _douaniers_, the smart soldiers,
and the railway porters in blue blouses. It was four in the morning when
we landed. Of course, it was the dead season at Dieppe, but we got in at
a hotel close to the sea. It was lovely waking up, rather late, one's
very first day in France, looking out of the window at the bright water
and the little fishing-boats, with their red-brown sails, and smelling a
really heavenly scent of strong coffee and fresh-baked rolls.

Later in the morning I walked round to the harbour to find that the
cargo-boat had arrived, and that Rattray and the car had been landed.
The creature actually greeted me with smiles. Now for the first time he
was a comfort. He did everything, paid the deposit demanded by the
custom-house, and got the necessary papers. Then he drove me back to the
hotel, but as it was about midday I thought that it would be nicer to
start for Paris the next day, when I hoped we could have a long, clear
run. In Paris, of course, Aunt Mary and I wanted to stay for at least a
week. Rattray promised to thoroughly overhaul the car, so that there
need be no "incidents" on the way.

There was a crowd round us next morning--a friendly, good-natured little
crowd--when we were getting ready to start in the stable-yard of the
hotel. Our landlady was there, a duck of a woman; the hotel porters in
green baize aprons stood and stared; some women washing clothes at a
trough in the corner stopped their work; and a lot of funny, wee
schoolboys, with short cropped hair and black blouses with leather
belts, buzzed round, gesticulating and trying to explain the mechanism
of the car to each other. Rattray bustled about with an oil-can in his
hand, then loaded up our luggage, and all was ready. With more dignity
than confidence I mounted to the high seat beside Aunt Mary. This time,
with one turn of the handle, the motor started, so contrary is this
strange beast, the automobile. One day you toil at the starting-handle
half an hour, the next the thing comes to life with a touch, and nobody
can explain why. Bowing to madame and the hotel people, we sailed
gracefully out of the hotel yard, Rattray too-tooing a fanfaronade on
the horn. It was a splendid start!

The streets of Dieppe are of those horrid uneven stones that the French
call _pave_, and our car jolted over them with as much noise and clatter
as if we'd had a c