a bargain could have been arranged, and with poignant
regret I was forced to leave my treasure-trove to its solitary
thoughts. After this we did not stop again until Molly steered the car
to the door of a beautiful hotel in Pallanza, where the shirt-sleeved
concierge hurried into his gold-laced coat, to receive in fitting
style the unusually early guests.

My first care, after coffee and a bath, was to examine the landlord
of the hotel on momentous question of mules and donkeys. At Lucerne, I
told him, they had assured me that the animals "flourished" in Canton
Ticino and the neighbourhood of the Italian Lakes. But I met with no
encouragement. Mules and donkeys were rarely seen in these parts, the
host declared. True, a few peasants employed them in the fields; but
those were poor things, unfit for an excursion such as Monsieur
purposed. At Piedimulera, perhaps, Monsieur would find what he wanted;
yes, at Piedimulera, or if not, at Domodossola; or--his face
brightened--in the Valais, preferably at Brig. Yes, he was certain
that mules and asses in abundance could be found at Brig in the Rhone
Valley. Brig! My heart sank. It was the old story. Counterfeiting
patience, I explained that I had an antipathy to the Rhone Valley, and
had actually crossed the Alps to find animals in Italy rather than be
driven to seek them in Brig.

Crushed by a hopeless, answering gesture, I made my report to Molly
and Jack. "It will end," I said, "in my traversing the world, and
eventually arriving in Japan, still searching the _rara avis_. By that
time I shall have become a harmless lunatic, and people will treat my
babblings with indulgent forbearance, when I go from house to house
begging to be supplied with a pack-mule or a pack-donkey."

At _dejeuner_, in a garden which was a successful imitation of Eden,
the situation did not, however, look so dark. The perfume of flowers,
distilled by the hot sun, was of Araby the Blest; the Borromean
Islands spread their enchantments before us, across a glittering blue
expanse of lake, and the world was after all endurable, though empty
of mules. Besides, Molly was a sweet consoler. She dwelt on the
hopeful suggestion in the name Piedimulera. It could not be wholly
deceiving, she argued. Why name a place Foot-of-a-Mule, if there were
no mules there?

"If there aren't," I exclaimed, "I swear to you that I will, by fair
means or foul, dispose of at Piedimulera all the things with which I
fondly tho