Not far from the center of this moldy scene, flourishing like a great lichen at the foot of Augustus, his magnificent column, was a public fountain, of what date I do not know. The housewives of the community were hard at their washing, piling the wet clothes in soapy masses on the stone rim of the basin. They were pattering and chattering, their skirts looped up at their hips, their heads wound about with cloths of various colors. It brought back to my mind, by way of contrast, the gloomy wash- and bath-house in Bethnal Green, which I have previously commented on. Despite poverty and ignorance, the scene here was so much more inviting--even inspiring. Under a blue sky, in the rays of a bright afternoon sun, beside a moldering but none the less lovely fountain, they seemed a very different kind of mortal--far more fortunate than those I had seen in Bethnal Green and Stepney. What can governments do toward supplying blue skies, broken fountains and humanly stirring and delightful atmosphere? Would Socialism provide these things? With many backward glances, we departed, conveyed hence in an inadequate little vehicle drawn by one of the boniest horses it has ever been my lot to ride behind. The cheerful driver was as fat as his horse was lean, and as dusty as the road itself. We were wedged tightly in the single green cloth seat, Scorp on one side, I on the other, Barfleur in the middle, expatiating as usual on the charm of life and enduring cheerfully all the cares and difficulties of his exalted and self-constituted office of guide, mentor and friend. Deep green valleys, dizzy precipices along which the narrow road skirted nervously, tall tops of hills that rose about you craggily or pastorally--so runs the road to Eze and we followed it jestingly, Sir Scorp so dizzy contemplating the depths that we had to hold him in. Barfleur was gay and ebullient. I never knew a man who could become so easily intoxicated with life. “There you have it,” said Sir Scorp, pointing far down a green slope to where a shepherd was watching his sheep, a cape coat over his arm, a crooked staff in his hand; “there is your pastoral, lineally descended from the ancient Greeks. Barfleur pretends to love nature, but that would not bring him out here. There is no _canard à la presse_ attached to it--no _sole walewski_.” “And see the goose-girl!” I exclaimed, as a maiden in bare feet, her skirt falling half way below her knees, crossed the road. “All provided, my dear boy,” assured Barfleur, beaming on me through his monocle. “Everything as it should be for you. You see how I do. Goose-girls, shepherds, public fountains, old monuments to Cæsar, anything you like. I will show you Eze now. Nothing finer in Europe.”