Lakes,
North Wales and the Valley of the Wye, the most charming of all
motor-runs in England.

Afterwards, Sylvia wanted to do some shopping, and we went over to
Paris for ten days. There, while at the Meurice, her father, who
chanced to be passing through Paris on his way from Brussels to Lyons,
came unexpectedly one evening and dined with us in our private salon.

Pennington was just as elegant and epicurean as ever. He delighted in
the dinner set before him, the hotel, of course, being noted for its
cooking.

That evening we were a merry trio. I had not seen my father-in-law
since the morning of our marriage, when I had called, and found him
confined to his bed. Therefore we had both a lot to relate to him
regarding our travels.

"I, too, have been moving about incessantly," he remarked, as he
poised his wine-glass in his hand, regarding the colour of its
contents. "I was in Petersburg three weeks ago. I'm interested in some
telegraph construction works there. We've just secured a big
Government contract to lay a new line across Siberia."

"I've written to you half-a-dozen times," remarked his daughter, "but
you never replied."

"I've never had your letters, child," he said. "Where did you address
them?"

"Two I sent to the Travellers' Club, here. Another I sent to the Hotel
de France, in Petersburg."

"Ah! I was at the Europe," he laughed. "I find their cooking better.
Their sterlet is even better than the Hermitage at Moscow. Jules, the
chef, was at Cubat's, in the Nevski, for years."

Pennington always gauged a hotel by the excellence of its chef. He
told us of tiny obscure places in Italy which he knew, where the rooms
were carpetless and comfortless, but where the cooking could vie with
the Savoy or Carlton in London. He mentioned the Giaponne in Leghorn,
the Tazza d'Oro in Lucca, and the Vapore in Venice, of all three of
which I had had experience, and I fully corroborated what he said. He
was a man who ate his strawberries with a quarter of a liqueur-glass
of maraschino thrown over them, and a slight addition of pepper, and
he always mixed his salads himself.

"Perhaps you think me very whimsical," he laughed across the table,
"but really, good cooking makes so much difference to life."

I told him that, as an Englishman, I preferred plainly-cooked food.

"Which is usually heavy and indigestible, I fear," he declared. "What,
now, could be more indigestible than our English roast beef and plum