At the “Ship” were many visitors, so for one night we had to lodge out, at the house of a dour, dreary-looking bootmaker. We breakfasted, though, at the hotel, and arrived there in time to find one of the guests conning the sketch-book I had left by misadventure in the coffee-room overnight. The man was all apology and nervousness, and upset a cup of tea over sketch-book and table-cloth. Then he retired confusedly to a couch at the other end of the room, where he immediately sat down on my hat. After this he went out, and probably did some more damage on the cumulative principle. There are several morals to this pathetic episode, of which undoubtedly the most striking is, “Don’t leave your hat on the sofa.” They have a visitors’ book at the “Ship,” from which I have culled some examples. The visitors’ book at an hotel is ever my first quest. Its contents, though, are mostly sorry stuff: praises of food supplied, and the moderation of the charges--forms of eulogy particularly distasteful to myself. But let us to our Looe versicles:-- “Dear Friend, be warned ere first you visit Looe; Its charms are many and its drawbacks few, Lest home and duties all alike forsook, You fall beneath the charms of Host and Hostess Cook; The fare is sweet, the charges just and low (I’ve travelled much, so surely ought to know, ’Neath Syren’s rocks I’ve heard the eddying Rhine, In Bingen’s bowers drunk the native wine, On Baltic’s wave have watched the setting sun, In France’s fields have met the peaceful nun, In Wales have wandered by the trout-streamed hill, On Scotland’s highlands paid the longest bill) Our host is not a lawyer, yet his conveyance cheap Will bear you to Polperro, from thence to Fowey steep, From threatening Cheesewing gaze on oceans twain, At night at billiards try a _coup de main_,[8] But yet, I’m sure, as day still follows day ’Twill find you anxious more and more to stay, Delighted, charmed, with lotus-eating mind, List! Menheniot’s horn and you are left behind!” Another:-- “At East Looe, R.S.O., you’ll find A ‘Ship’ in which you’ll make your home; ’Tis safely anchor’d near the shore Above the angry billows’ foam. * * * * * Three voyages in this ‘Ship’ I’ve made, The wind was fair, the ocean calm:-- And ‘Captain Cook,’ he knows his book, His wife’s and sister’s hearts are warm.” [Illustration: THE “JOLLY SAILOR.”] But “Captain” Cook did not know his book sufficiently well to know that he had entertained a minor poet unawares. In the Visitors’ Book is the signature of Mr. Edmund Gosse, and the landlord had no recollection of him, although his visit had been, as another poet (_minimis!_) sings, “only a year ago.”