t their fingers' ends,--literally, as
they are accomplished pianists. There is Mrs. DINDERLIN, who was here
last year, and is taking the waters seriously, and who knows when to put
in the right word at the right moment. Cousin JANE who is taking the
waters still more seriously and who is an excellent listener: myself an
impartial referee: and PULLER the Solicitor out for a holiday, who is
alternately in the highest of spirits or the lowest depths of
depression, according as the waters and weather affect him. Outside our
party there are others whom I meet occasionally, consisting of the lady
who finds fault with everything French, the gentleman who laughs at
everything French, the grumbler whom nothing satisfies, the contented
man who is pleased with everything, the man who after being here a day
is intensely bored, the man who from the moment of his arrival is always
studying Guide-books and _indicateurs_ to see what is the best and
easiest way of getting away again: the patient who has come all the way
here to see the Doctor and then refuses to do anything he tells him: the
patient who has come to find out what on earth is the matter with him:
the man who doctors himself, and two or three ladies of my acquaintance
of whom I only catch occasional glimpses as they issue from Sedan-chairs
or muffled up like the Turkish women, merely recognise me with their
eyes, incline their heads and pass on their way with a little
drinking-glass in their hands.

To me Royat is an amusing place: it is certainly a pretty one, and its
waters in most cases are decidedly of lasting benefit. What those "most
cases" are, the patients themselves best know.

* * *

For expanse there is nothing like the sea, and for grandeur the snow
mountains. Unless I go up to the Puy de Dome--which I do not mean to do,
for I have been up there once, and never, never, never will go there
again--I cannot see either. And even from the top of the Puy you can
only discern the sea, or Mont Blanc, with a very good glass, on a very
clear day.

* * *

M. BOISGOBEY'S description of a Parisian Club in his latest book (I
delight in BOISGOBEY now that there is no GABORIAU) called
_Grippe-Soleil_ will amuse London Club members. The only two Clubs in
Paris I ever saw were not a bit like BOISGOBEY'S description.

* * *

When anyone who has been under treatment a week, unexpectedly meets a
friend here, he stops short, stares at him, examines him