later we drove out of Havre, bound for Paris and
Lucerne, where I was to "pick up" that mule, and become a lone
wanderer on the face of the earth. Gotteland had seen to the shipping
of the car from Southampton, while we spent a day on the crowded sands
of Trouville, where I was so lucky as to meet no one I knew.

It was only now, Winston said, that I should realise to the full the
joys of motoring, impossible to taste under present conditions in
England. Our way was to lie along the Seine to Paris, and Jack
recalled to us Napoleon's saying that "Paris, Rouen, and Havre form
only one city, of which the Seine is the highway."

Last year, these two had seen the country of the Loire together, under
curious and romantic conditions, and now Molly was to be shown another
great river in France. We changed places in the car, like players in
the old game of "stage coach." Sometimes Molly had the reins, and I
the seat of honour by her side. Sometimes Jack drove, with Molly
beside him, I in the tonneau; then I knew that they were perfectly
happy, though Gotteland and I could hear every word they said, and
their talk was generally of what we passed by the way, occasionally
interspersed by a "Do you remember?"

Now, if there is an insufferable companion under the sun, it is the
average "well-informed person" who continually dins into your ears
things you were born knowing. This I resent, for I flatter myself that
I was born knowing a good many exceptionally interesting and exciting
things which can't be learned by studying history, geography, or even
_Tit-Bits_. Jack Winston, however, though he has actually taken the
trouble to house in his memory an enormous number of facts,--"those
brute beasts of the language,"--has so tamed and idealised the
creatures as to make them not only tolerable but attractive. I can
even hear him tell things which I myself don't know or have forgotten,
without instantly wishing to throw a jug of water at his good-looking
head; indeed, I egg him on and have been tempted to jot down an item
of information on my shirt cuff, with a view of fixing it in my mind,
and eventually getting it off as my own.

Whenever Molly or I admired any object, natural or artificial, it
seemed that Jack knew all about it. She showed a flattering interest
in everything he said, and, fired by her compliments, he suddenly
exclaimed: "Look here, Molly, suppose we don't hurry on, the way we've
been planning to do? Last year we h