says
the resident, as proudly as if that said air were his special invention
and property. Certain West-country doctors affect Norton-on-Sea for
patients in need of restful change, and their melancholy advent
justifies the existence of the great hotel on the esplanade, and the row
of bath-chairs at the corner. There are ten bath-chairs in all, and on
sunny days ten crumpled-looking old ladies can generally be seen sitting
inside their canopies, trundling slowly along the esplanade, accompanied
by a paid companion, dressed in black and looking sorry for herself.
Occasionally on Saturdays and Sundays a pretty daughter, or a tall son
takes the companion's place, but as sure as Monday arrives they
disappear into space. One can imagine that one hears them bidding their
farewells--"So glad to see you getting on so well, mother dear! I
positively _must_ rush back to town to attend to a hundred duties. It's
a comfort to feel that you are so well placed. Miss Biggs is a
treasure, and this air is so bracing!..."

The esplanade consists of four rows of lodging-houses and two hotels, in
front of which is a strip of grass, on which a band plays twice a week
during the summer months, and the school-children twice a day all the
year long. The invalids in the hotel object to the children and make
unsuccessful attempts to banish them from their pitch, and the children
in their turn regard the invalids with frank disdain, and make audible
and uncomplimentary surmises as to the nature of their complaints as the
procession of chairs trundles by.

In front of the green, and separating it from the steep, pebbly shore,
are a number of fishermen's shanties, bathing machines, and hulks of old
vessels stretched in a long, straggling row, while one larger shed
stands back from the rest, labelled "Lifeboat" in large white letters.

Parallel with the esplanade runs the High Street, a narrow thoroughfare
showing shops crowded with the useless little articles which are
supposed to prove irresistibly attractive to visitors to the seaside.
At the bazaar a big white label proclaims that everything in the window
is to be sold at the astounding price of "eleven-three," and the
purchaser is free to make his choice from such treasures as work-boxes
lined in crimson plush, and covered with a massed pattern in shells;
desks fitted with all the implements for writing, scent bottles tied
with blue ribbons; packets of stationery with local views, photog