d lively streets full of
red-legged soldiers, rather weedy and shambling fellows, like most
French conscripts. Beyond Poitiers the road is one long, exhilarating
switchback--you rush down one hill, climb another, swoop again into a
hollow, and so on, the road unrolling itself like a great white tape.
You try to drive faster than the tape unrolls, but somehow you can never
beat it.

That we were getting into the south was shown by the fact that the road
was bordered by endless rows of walnut trees. Under a tumbled sky, and
with an occasional spatter of rain, we passed that day through a vast
stretch of rolling, cultivated land, with obscure villages at long
intervals. In a little town called Couhe-Verac we lunched rather late.
The regular _dejeuner_ was over, as it was nearly three in the
afternoon; but in ten minutes after we got into the house we sat down to
this luncheon: boiled eggs, roast veal, _b[oe]uf a la mode_, _puree_ of
potatoes, pheasant, a delicious _pate_, grapes, peaches, pears, sweet
biscuits, cream cheese, red and white wine, and bread _ad libitum_; all
for two francs fifty per head. Think of it! This was a homely village
inn, with no pretensions. What would have happened if we had turned up
unexpectedly at such a house in England? We should have been offered
cold beef and pickles, with the alternative of ham and eggs, or possibly
"chop or steak, sir; take twenty minutes." Truly in cooking we are
barbarians. The French dine; we feed.

The landlord was a man of character. He had delightful manners, and
though he was young his hair was greyish, and cut low and straight
across a broad forehead. Through gold-rimmed glasses gleamed the blue
eyes of an enthusiast. He went with me to look at the car, and explained
that he was an inventor--that he had designed a new system of marine
propulsion more powerful than the screw. It followed the action of a man
in swimming, "regular in irregularity," and standing on his toes, he
flung out his arms, and beat them rhythmically in the air to illustrate
his theory. It was hard, he confided in me, to have to keep an inn in a
small town, when he ought to be in Paris, among engineers, perfecting
his invention. Did I, by any chance, know of a capitalist who would back
him? I sympathised and regretted; but who knows if he has not got hold
of an idea? At Blois they have a statue of Denis Papin, who, the French
say, invented the steam engine. Perhaps, years hence, if my
grandch