es and equally avoids the drive
through Paris with its attendant responsibilities.

The automobilist, once clear of Paris, has only to think of the open
road. There will be little to bother him now, save care in
negotiating the oft-times narrow, awkward turnings of an occasional
small town where, if it is market-day, untold disaster may await him
if he does not look sharp.

On the occasion of our flight south, nothing on the whole journey
happened to give us any concern, save at Pithiviers, where a
market-wagon with a staid old farm-horse--who did not mean any
harm--charged us and lifted off the right mud-guard, necessitating an
hour's work or more at the blacksmith's to straighten it out again.

[Illustration: Wayside Inn in France]

At any rate, we had covered a trifle over a hundred kilometres from
Paris, and that was something. We lunched well at the Hotel de la
Poste, and sent off to city-bound friends in the capital samples of
the lark patties for which the town is famous.

Nearly every town in France has its specialty; Pithiviers its _pate
des allouettes;_ Montelimar its _nougat_; Axat its _mousserons_;
Perigueux its _truffes_, and Tours its _rillettes_. When one buys
them away from the land of their birth he often buys dross, hence it
is a real kindness to send back eatable souvenirs of one's round,
much more kind than would be the tawdry jugs and plates emblazoned in
lurid colours, or white wood napkin-rings and card-cases, usually
gathered in as souvenirs.

It is forty-two kilometres to Orleans, one of the most historic and,
at the same time, one of the most uninteresting cities in France, a
place wholly without local dignity and distinction. Its hotels,
cafes, and shops are only second-rate for a place of its rank, and
the manners and customs of its people but weak imitations of those of
Paris. You can get anything you may need in the automobile line most
capably attended to, and you can be housed and fed comfortably enough
in either of the two leading hotels, but there is nothing inspiring
or even satisfying about it, as we knew from a half-dozen previous
occasions.

We slept that night beneath the frowning donjon walls of Beaugency's
L'Ecu de Bretagne, for something less than six francs apiece for
dinner, lodging, and morning coffee, and did not regret in the least
the twenty-five kilometres we had put between us and Orleans.

At one time it was undecided whether we should come on to Beaugency,
o