For On The Day Prior To My Departure I Received A Communication
From The Board Of Trade Labour, Etc., Etc., Whose Methods Of Work, It
Was Now Apparent, Were As Expeditious As Its Own Name Was Brief.
That
hopeful Mr. R - - , that bubbling young optimist who had so
conscientiously written down a number of my qualifications, such as they
were - he was keeping his promise after months, and months, and months.
Never say die.
The dear little fellow! What job had he captured for me?
An offer to work in a factory at Gretna Green, wages to commence at 17s.
6d. per week.
H'm.
The remuneration was not on a princely scale, but I like to think that
it included the free use of the lavatory, if there happened to be one on
the premises.
So luck pursued me to the end, though it never quite caught me up. For
bags were packed, and tickets taken. And therefore:
"What did you do in the Great War, grandpapa?"
"I loafed, my boy."
"That was naughty, grandpapa."
"Naughty, but nice...."
ALONE
Mentone
Italiam petimus....
Discovered, in a local library - a genuine old maid's library: full of
the trashiest novels - those two volumes of sketches by J. A. Symonds,
and forthwith set to comparing the Mentone of his day with that of ours.
What a transformation! The efforts of Dr. James Henry Bennet and
friends, aided and abetted by the railway, have converted the idyllic
fishing village into - something different. So vanishes another fair spot
from earth. And I knew it. Yet some demon has deposited me on these
shores, where life is spent in a round of trivialities.
One fact suffices. Symonds, driving over from Nice, at last found
himself at the door of "the inn." The inn.... Are there any inns left at
Mentone?
A propos of inns, here is a suggestive state of affairs. At the present
moment, twenty-two of the principal hotels and pensions of Mentone are
closed, because owned or controlled or managed by Germans. Does not this
speak rather loudly in favour of Teuton enterprise? Where, in a German
town of 18,000 inhabitants, will you find twenty-two such establishments
in the hands of Frenchmen?
The statistical mood is upon me. I wander either among the tombs of that
cemetery overhead, studying sepulchral inscriptions and drawing
deductions, from what is therein stated regarding the age, nationality
and other circumstances of the deceased, as to the relative number of
consumptives here interred. Sixty per cent, shall we say? Or else, in
the streets of the town, I catch myself endeavouring - hitherto without
success - to count up the number of grocers' shops. They are far in
excess of what is needful. Now, why? Well, your tailor or hatter or
hosier - he makes a certain fixed profit on each article he sells, and he
does not sell them at every moment of the day. The other, quite apart
from small advantages to be gained owing to the ever-shifting prices of
his wares, is ceaselessly engaged in dispensing trifles, on each of
which he makes a small gain. The grocery business commends itself warmly
to the French genius for garnering halfpennies. Nowhere on earth, I
fancy, will you see butter more meticulously weighed than here. Buy a
ton of it, and they will replace on their counter a fragment of the
weight and size of a postage stamp, rather than let the balance descend
on your side.
And so the days, the weeks, have passed. Will one ever again escape from
Mentone? It may well be colder in Italy, but anything is preferable to
this inane Riviera existence....
I am not prone to recommend restaurants, or to discommend them, for the
simple reason that, if they have proved bad, I smile to think of other
men being poisoned and robbed as well as myself; as to the good
ones - why, only a fool would reveal their whereabouts. Since, however, I
hope so to order my remaining days of life as never to be obliged to
return to these gimcrack regions, there is no inducement for withholding
the name of the Merle Blanc at Monte Carlo, a quite unpretentious place
of entertainment that well deserves its name - white blackbirds being
rather scarcer here than elsewhere. The food is excellent - it has a
cachet of its own; the wine more than merely good. And this is
surprising, for the local mixtures (either Italian stuff which is dumped
down in shiploads at Nice, Marseille, Cette, etc., or else the poor
though sometimes aromatic product of the Var) are not gratifying to the
palate. One imbibes them, none the less, in preference to anything else,
as it is a peculiarity of what goes under the name of wine hereabouts
that the more you pay for it, the worse it tastes. If you adventure into
the Olympic spheres of Chateau Lafite and so forth, you may put your
trust in God, or in a blue pill. Chateau Cassis would be a good name for
these finer vintages, seeing that the harmless black currant enters
largely into their composition, though not in sufficient quantity to
render them wholly innocuous. Which suggests a little problem for the
oenophilist. What difference of soil or exposure or climate or treatment
can explain the fact that Mentone is utterly deficient in anything
drinkable of native origin, whereas Ventimiglia, a stone's throw
eastwards, can boast of its San Biagio, Rossese, Latte, Dolceacqua and
other noble growths, the like of which are not to be found along the
whole length of the French Riviera?
Having pastured the inner man, to his complete satisfaction, at the
hospitable Merle Blanc, our traveller will do well to pasture his eyes
on the plants in the Casino gardens. Whoever wants to see flowers and
trees on their best behaviour, must come to Monte Carlo, where the
spick-and-span Riviera note is at its highest development. Not a leaf is
out of place; they have evidently been groomed and tubbed and manicured
from the hour of their birth.
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