ng, low,
double-jointed crouching tiger--a forty-devil-power machine, fearing
neither God nor man, and which is bound sooner or later to come to an
untimely end and the scrap heap.

All about, fringing the tea tables and filling the summer air with their
chatter and laughter, were gathered not only the cream, but the very
top skimmings of all the fashion and folly of Trouville--twenty minutes
away, automobile time--their blossoming hats, full-blown parasols,
and pink and white veils adding another flower-bed to the quaint old
courtyard.

With the return of the Man from the Latin Quarter, his other guest, who
knew the ins and outs of the cellar, and who had gone in search of a
certain vintage known only to the initiated (don't forget to ask for it
when you go--it has no label, but the cork is sealed with yellow wax; M.
Ramois, the good landlord, will know the kind--_if he thinks you do_),
our host, the Sculptor, his mind still on his friend the painter, looked
up and said, as he reached for the corkscrew:

"Why not go to-morrow? The mill is the most picturesque thing you
ever saw--an old Louis XIII house and mill on the River Rille near
Beaumont-le-Roger, once inhabited by the poet Chateaubriand. The river
runs underground in the sands for some distance and comes out a few
miles from Knight's--cold as ice and clear as crystal and packed full of
trout. Besides Knight is at home--had a line from him this morning."

The Man from the Quarter laid down his glass.

"How far is it?" This man is so daft on fishing that he has been known
to kiss the first trout he hooks in the spring.

"Only fifty-six miles, my dear boy--run you over in an hour."

"And everything else that gets in the way," said the Man from the
Quarter, moving his glass nearer the Sculptor's elbow.

"No danger of that--I've got a siren that you can hear for a mile--but
really, it's only a step."

*****

I once slid down a salt mine on a pair of summer pantaloons and brought
up in total darkness (a godsend under the circumstances). I still
shudder when I think of the speed; of the way my hair tried to leave my
scalp; of the peculiar blink in my eyes; of the hours it took to
live through forty seconds; and of my final halt in the middle of a
moon-faced, round-paunched German who was paid a mark for saving the
bones and necks of idiots like myself.

This time the sliding was done in an overcoat (although the summer sun
was blazing), a steamer cap, and