That was the last of our follies. For the rest of the time we were in Rimini we made Rimini suffice--bathing or watching the sea and its serene yellow sails all the day, and afterwards taking short lazy walks in the cool of the evening--now beside the river, from the bridge to the harbour mouth and back again, past all the activities of this little port of fishermen; now round the walls of the town; now in the by-streets; and now down to the sea again, after dinner, to see the moon and perhaps hear a little music. Except for mosquito bites we all kept well, in spite of the heat and in defiance of the prophecies of many friends, who took the gloomiest views of Italian drinking water. But the mosquitoes! There is no preparation against mosquitoes sold by Italian chemists that we did not rub on our luckless skins; yet all in vain. We came at last to believe that it is an Italian form of humour, this preparation, under the name of preventives, of expensive delicacies dear to the mosquito palate--an Italian joke against the English. Be that as it may, nothing did any good; while as for the little cones which we burned at night, filling the room with a thick aromatic smoke guaranteed to disgust these insects more than anything else, I used to wake up and hear them drawing great draughts of it into their lungs as if it were ozone. CHAPTER XXVI IN WHICH TWO MODERN LOVERS LAY THEIR CASES BEFORE ME AND I DO NOTHING FOR EITHER I have had two lovers to see me: such different ones too. The first was Dollie Heathcote, very nervous--for him; which means that his eyeglass dropped ten times in a quarter of an hour instead of only five times. If he would wear a cord this would not matter; but as he has an objection to do so, a great deal of his time is spent on the floor, which, in one so thoughtful of the knees of his trousers, is a curious anomaly. "Look here, Mr. Falconer," said Dollie, "you know the world and you're married. What do you advise me to do? Do you think I'm really a marrying man?" "Not impetuously," I replied.