There St. Malo walls are frowning,--'twas immortalised by Browning, When he wrote the ballad crowning with the laurel Hervé Riel; With ozone each nerve that braces, pleasant strolls, and pretty faces, Sure, of all fair seaside places, Breton Dinard bears the bell! * * * COMPENSATION,--"Ullo, Jones! You in _Paris!_" "Yes, I've just run over for a holiday." "Where's your wife?" "Couldn't come, poor dear. Had to stop at home on account of the baby!" "Why, your holiday will be half spoiled!" "Yes. Mean to stay twice as long, to make up!" [Illustration: 'ARRY IN ST. PETERSBURG He tries to make a droski-driver understand that he could have gone the same distance in a hansom for less money.] AT PARIS.--_Professed Linguist._ Look here! Moi et un otrer Mossoo--a friend of mine--desirong der go par ler seven o'clock train à Cologne. Si nous leaverong the hotel at six o'clock et ung demy, shall nous catcherong le train all right? Comprenny voo? Voo parly Français, don't you? You understand French, eh? _Polite Frenchman_ (_who speaks the English_). I understand the French? Ah yase! Sometimes, monsieur! [Illustration: A LITTLE DUOLOGUE ON THE QUAY AT BOULOGNE-SUR-MER] [Illustration: HARRY'S SON'S HOLIDAY REMINISCENCES--SWITZERLAND (Drorn all by himself, and signed "Harry's Son")] WHAT TOURISTS NOTE (_Supplementary Facts--omitted from the Times List_) That everything is so much better on the Continent. That the proverbially polite Frenchman never smokes before ladies in a railway carriage. That not for worlds would he shut the window in your face and glare at you if you ask for a little air. That no official ever seen through a pigeon-hole at a post bureau is dyspeptic and insolent. That sanitary improvements in Italy do not mean typhoid fever. That where your bed-room walls are of paper, and somebody on one side of you retires in good spirits at two, and somebody else on the other gets up lively at four, you have a refreshing night's rest. That rambling parties of Cook's tourists add immensely to the national _prestige_. That the discovery of what it is you eat in a _vol-au-vent_ at a "_diner à trois francs_," will please but not surprise you. That it is such fun being caged-up in a railway waiting-room, and then being allowed to scamper for your life to the carriages. That perpetual fighting to get into over-crowded hotels, crammed with vulgar specimens of your own fellow-countrymen, is really enjoyable and exhilarating work. That a couple of journeys across the Channel, especially if it is blowing both ways, are at least always something pleasant to look back upon. That when you once get home again, England, spite some trivial advantages, being without Belgian postmen, French omnibuses, and Swiss police-regulations, strikes you as almost unendurable. * * *