ing-off to their early education, before they
settled down to a business or professional life.

They checked off in their guide-books Melrose Abbey, the Tower of
London, the Cathedral of Canterbury, and those of Antwerp, Cologne,
Rome, Venice, and Paris, as they did the Cheshire Cheese, Mont Blanc,
and the ruins of Carnac. It was all a part of the general scheme of
travel, to cover a lot of ground and see all they could, for it was
likely that they would pass that way but once. Why, then, should one
blame the automobilist--who really travels very leisurely in that he
sees a lot of the countryside manners and customs off the beaten
track--if he rushes over an intermediate stretch of country in order
to arrive at one more to his liking?

One sees the thing every day on any of the great highroads in France
leading from the Channel ports. One's destination may be the
Pyrenees, the Cote d'Azur, Italy, or even Austria, and he does the
intermediate steps at full speed. The same is true if he goes to
Switzerland by the Rhine valley, or to Homburg by passing through
Belgium or Holland. He might be just as well pleased with a fortnight
in the Ardennes, or even in Holland or in Touraine, but, if his
destination is Monte Carlo or Biarritz, he is not likely to linger
longer by the way than the exigencies of food, drink, and lodging,
and the care of his automobile demand.

When he has no objective point he loiters by the way and no doubt
enjoys it the more, but it is not fair to put the automobilist down
as a scorcher simply because he is pushing on. The best guide-books
are caprice and fantasy, if you are hot pressed for time.

Mile-stones, or rather _bornes kilometriques_, line the roadways of
Continental military Europe mercilessly, and it's a bad sign when the
chauffeur begins to count them off. All the same, he knows his
destination a great deal better than does some plodding tourist by
rail who scorns him for rushing off again immediately after lunch.

One of the charms of travel, to the tried traveller, is, just as
in the time of the Abbe Prevost, the ability to exchange remarks
on one's itinerary with one's fellow travellers. In France it
does not matter much whether they are automobilists or not. The
_commis-voyageur_ is a more numerous class here, apparently, than in
any other country on the globe, and the detailed information which he
can give one about the towns and hotels and sights and scenes _en
route_, albeit he