only excuse accepted. So when we reached the wayside inn I pulled up.
"What's up?" called a voice through the glass.
"Shoe loose, doctor," I answered.
The next moment he was on the road beside the team.
"Where's the buffy?" he asked.
I pointed with the whip to the house, and soon some half-dozen of us were sitting in the kitchen, and they were standing me coffee and cognac all round.
***
8 a.m.—The shipping of the Havre was in sight—a delicate tracery against the sky, like a distant winter forest. Beyond, across the river, wrapped in pale blue haze, stretched the cliffs of Honfleur, and the offing, all shimmering in the sunlight, lay studded with snow-white sails. . . .
With the skid on, we swung down the long hill into the city.
And as we pushed our way through the streets, tight-packed with a staring crowd, and bawled unceremoniously at the local police, and forced the irate tram-drivers to retreat till there was space for us to pass them, and searched at every turning to the right and to the left for the square where we were to camp, I realised more than ever the exhilarating charm of this reckless, adventurous life.
***
Havre, 9.30 a.m.—He was a little French cabin-boy. He had deserted his ship, and had followed the show from Dieppe. He used to explain to us with pride how, if he were caught, he would get forty-eight days' imprisonment. His clothes were a mass of filthy tags. I gave him a pair of trousers, and he stole my cigarettes.
