(3) "Mr. and Mrs. So-and-so and family spent a fortnight here. The lady complained that the town was dull, which we (who would have the best reason to complain of such a defect) do not admit. She announced her opinion in the street, at the top of her voice; and expressed annoyance that there should be no band to play of an evening. She should have brought one. Her husband carried about a note-book and asked us questions about our private concerns. He brought no letters of introduction, and we do not know his business. The children behaved better." (4) "Mr. Blank arrived here on a bicycle, and charmed us with the geniality of his address. We hope to see him again, as he left without discharging a number of small debts." It is, I take it, because the Briton has grown accustomed to invading other people's countries, that he expects, when travelling, to find a polite consideration which he does not import. But the tourist pushes the expectation altogether too far. When he arrives at a town which lays itself out to attract visitors for the sake of the custom they bring, he has a right to criticise, _if he feel quite sure he is a visitor of the sort which the town desires_. This is important: for a town may seek to attract visitors, and yet be exceedingly unwilling to attract some kinds of visitors. But should he choose to plant himself upon a spot where the inhabitants ask only to go about the ordinary occupations of life in quietness, it is the height of impertinence to proclaim that the life of the place does not satisfy his needs. Most intolerable of all is the conduct of the uninvited stranger who settles for a year or two in some quiet town--we suffer a deal from such persons along the south-western littoral--and starts with the intention of "putting a little 'go' into it," or, in another of his favourite phrases, of "putting the place to rights." Men of this mind are not to be reasoned with; nor is it necessary that they should be reasoned with. Only, when the inevitable reaction is felt, and they begin to lose their temper, I would beg them not to assume too hastily that the 'natives' have no sense of humour. All localities have a sense of humour, but it works diversely with them. A man may even go on for twenty years, despising his neighbours for the lack of it. But when the discovery comes, he will be lucky if the remembrance of it do not wake him up of nights, and keep him writhing in his bed--that is, if we suppose _him_ to have a sense of humour too.