fifty-five minutes, according to the Railway-Steamship
time-cards, to make the passage from Calais to Dover, but the writer
has never been able to make one of these lightning passages.

Automobiles are transported by the mail-boats only upon "special
arrangements," information upon which point is given so vaguely that
one suspects bribery and craft.

We did not bite, but went over by the night cargo-boat, at least the
automobile did, at a cost of a hundred francs. This is cheap or dear,
according to the way you look at it. For the service rendered it is
dear, for the accommodation to you it is, perhaps, cheap enough. At
any rate, it is cheap enough when you want to get away _from_ England
again, its grasping hotel-keepers, and its persecuting police.

Why do so many English automobilists tour abroad, Mr. British
Hotel-keeper and Mr. Police Sergeant? One wonders if you really
suspect.

Part III
On Britain's Roads

Chapter I
The Bath Road

[Illustration: The Bath Road]

The Bath Road is in many ways the most famed main road out of London.
Visions as varied as those of highwaymen on Hounslow Heath, boating
at Maidenhead, the days of the "dandies" at Bath, and of John Cabot
at Bristol flashed through our minds whenever we heard the Bath road
mentioned, so we set out with a good-will on the hundred and eighteen
mile journey to Bath.

To-day the road's designation is the same as of yore, though Palmer's
coaches, that in 1784 left London at eight in the morning and arrived
at Bristol at eleven at night, have given way to automobiles which
make the trip in three hours. You can be three hours or thirty, as
you please. We figured it out for thirty-six and lunched, dined,
slept, and breakfasted _en route_, and felt the better for it.

The real popularity of the Bath road and its supremacy in coaching
circles a century and a quarter ago--a legacy which has been handed
down to automobilists of to-day--was due to the initiative of one
John Palmer, a gentleman of property, who had opened a theatre at
Bath, and was sorely annoyed at the delays he had to submit to in
obtaining star actors from London to appear on particular nights.
Palmer was a man with a grievance, but he was also a man with ability
and purpose. He travelled about, and made notes and observations, and
organized a scheme by which coaching might be brought into a complete
system; he memorialized the government, was opposed by the
post-office authorities,