"As for myself, always an outrageously useless member of society, but especially so in times of epidemic, I hinted to myself one day that the air of Paris was becoming unwholesome, and I made up my mind to betake myself to some more genial clime. "You don't believe me? You remember what I wrote to you about Trouville. Well, this time, I got as far as—I will not tell you all at once, lest you should be unjust enough not to believe me. Either your example made me brave, or the small-pox made a coward of me— whichever it was, I packed up my traps. Yes, I did, with all due deference to you, and I took my ticket for Lyons, so as to be nearer to you. One never knows, said I to myself, what may happen; once on the shores of the Mediterranean, I may, perhaps, eventually find myself at Khartoum. "Moreover, I hit upon a capital plan for getting away as far as possible. Instead of taking a morning train, as I did when I went—I mean, when I attempted to go to Trouville, I followed your example and took the night mail. I engaged a sleeping compartment all to myself, and went regularly to bed. You see my idea, do you not? I reckoned on my habitual laziness to prevent my attempting to rise when once I had laid down. And so it happened that 11 a.m., on the following day found me still asleep—at Marseilles! "Yes, I, Pommerelle, I have set eyes on Carcassonne. I beg your pardon, I was thinking of the song. I mean, I have seen Marseilles! "Since I arrived I have been strolling on the quay _de la Jolliette_, and watching the steamers of the Messageries Maritimes. If one of them had only taken it into its head to get up steam and start at once I should have jumped on board, and the thing would have been over, because, unless I threw myself into the sea, which is against my principles, I must have gone as far as Egypt. But there was no steamer for forty-eight hours, and that was asking too much of me. Home-sickness once more claimed me for its own; I sought for Paris, and Paris only, at every turn. I cried aloud for Paris, and the echoes of the Cannebière alone responded. From that moment I was lost. "Nevertheless, I did not withdraw myself from you too abruptly. I went to the railway station and took my ticket for Monte-Carlo, where I was sure to stumble across some acquaintance, good, bad, or indifferent. "What splendid vegetation! What a sky! What flowers! What trees! What an idea all this gives one of the tropics! How wonderfully happy you fellows must be, living in the midst of nature, real, unsophisticated nature. I was in the seventh heaven of delight, and I said, 'If it is so pretty here, what sights they must be seeing beyond there!' And, upon my word, without any further ado I sent Doctor Desrioux a whole series of telegrams in the laconic, or negro style—'I determined— start—Africa. You leave small-pox—join me—Monte-Carlo.'