nd
have his bath; it was not ready, so he might go back to bed with a
quiet conscience. Presently came another knock, and our Naturalist,
carefully robing himself, opened the door, and discovered the
chambermaid standing there with a plate, a knife, and a breakfast roll.

"What the dev----I mean _qu'c'est qu'c'est_?" he asked.

"_Monsieur a demande le petit pain_," the girl replied, astonished at
his astonishment.

With great presence of mind he accepted the situation, took in the
bread, and did without his bath. The Member says that, coming upon him
suddenly amid the silence of the snow, he heard him practising the
slightly different sounds of _pain_ and _bain_.

Nothing but snow between the Col and the Dent du Jaman, but snow at its
very best, hard and dry. Just before we reach the top we come upon a
huge drift frozen hard and slippery. We might have gone round, but we
decided to try and climb. The Patriarch of course was first, and
achieved the task triumphantly. Others followed, and then came the
Chancery Barrister. Another step, and he would have safely landed.
But unhappily a quotation occurred to him.

"This is jolly," he said, turning half round, with the proud
consciousness that he was at the crest and that with another stride all
would be well; "what's that Horace says about enjoying what you have?"

"'Me pascant olivae,
Me cichorea, levesque malvae,
Frui paratis, et valido mihi,
Latoe, dones, et, precor, integra
Cum----'"

Here the most terrible contortion appeared on the generally pleasant
countenance of the Chancery Barrister. He clutched desperately at the
ice; but his suspicion was too true. He had begun to move downwards
("When he got to _cum_ he came," the Member, who makes bad jokes, says),
and with increasing impetus he slid down the bank. His face during the
terrible moments when he was not quite certain where he would stop, or
indeed whether he would ever stop, passed through a series of
contortions highly interesting to those on the bank above.

"_Me pascant olivae_!" cried the Member. "Olives are evidently no use as
a support in a case like yours, and diachylon would be more use to you
now than soft mallows."

The Chancery Barrister, who had happily reached the bottom, walked round
by a more accessible path, and nothing further either from Horace or
Virgil occurred to him for more than an hour.

Perhaps the difference in the weather