st Point. On a sudden, while I was still
fumbling for my poncho which was rolled inside my rucksack, the storm
burst upon us. We put up the umbrella and held the poncho against the
wind and driving rain. But the wind so whisked it about and the rain
was so eager to find the openings that presently we were drenched. In
an hour we came to West Point. Luckily the cook was up, and she
served us a hot dinner in our rooms with the washstand for a table.
When we started there was a piece of soap in the dish, but I think we
ate it in our hunger. I recall that there was one course that foamed
up like custard and was not upon the bill. It was a plain room with
meager furniture, yet we fell asleep with a satisfaction beyond the
Cecils in their lordly beds. I stirred once when there was a clamor in
the hall of guests returning from a hop at the Academy--a prattle of
girls' voices--then slept until the sun was up.

But my preference in lodgings is the low sagging half-timbered
building that one finds in the country towns of England. It has leaned
against the street and dispensed hospitality for three hundred years.
It is as old a citizen as the castle on the hill. It is an inn where
Tom Jones might have spent the night, or any of the rascals out of
Smollett. Behind the wicket there sits a shrewish female with a cold
eye towards your defects, and behind her there is a row of bells which
jangle when water is wanted in the rooms. Having been assigned a room
and asked the hour of dinner, you mount a staircase that rises with a
squeak. There is a mustiness about the place, which although it is
unpleasant in itself, is yet agreeable in its circumstance. A long
hall runs off to the back of the house, with odd steps here and there
to throw you. Your room looks out upon a coach-yard, and as you wash
you overhear a love-passage down below.

In the evening you go forth to see the town. If it lies on the ocean,
you walk upon the mole and watch the fisher folk winding up their
nets, or sitting with tranquil pipes before their doors. Maybe a booth
has been set up on the parade that runs along the ocean, and a husky
fellow bids you lay out a sixpence for the show, which is the very
same, he bawls, as was played before the King and the Royal Family.
This speech is followed by a fellow with a trombone, who blows himself
very red in the face.

But rather I choose to fancy that it is an inland town, and that there
is a quieter traffic on the street