For nothing, one may often hear, Is sacred to the engineer; He's much too clever. Well, I must hurry on again, That mountain summit to attain. Good-bye. I'm going by the train. I climb it? Never! * * * AT MONTE CARLO.--_First Briton._ One never sees any young girls here. _Second Briton (brutally inclined)._ No! the ladies are obliged to be _trente et quarante_ to match the tables. [Illustration: WHY WE ARE SO BELOVED ON THE CONTINENT _Provincial Tourist_ (_to "Kellner" who offers him sausages_). "I say, old feller, any 'osses died about 'ere lately! _Chevals morts_, you know!!" [_And the worst of it is, that though his compatriots did not laugh, as he expected, the "vulgarian" wasn't a bit abashed._ ] ROUNDABOUT READINGS Ostend must be a glorious place. From an advertisement which has appeared in an evening contemporary I gather that "the multitude, anxious to spend an elegant and fashionable sojourn in the country, has rendered itself this year at Ostend. It is a long time since such an opulent clientele has been united in a seaside resort. At the fall of day the vast terraces of the fashionable restaurants, situated along the sea-bank, present a fairy aspect. There is quite a confusion of dazzling costumes upon which sparkle thousand gems, and all this handsome cosmopolitan society passes through the saloons of the Kursaal Club, in which one hears spoken all known languages as at Babel and Monte Carlo, and of which the attractions are identical to those of the latter place." This is the first time I have heard of a similarity to Babel being mentioned as an attraction. But no doubt an opulent clientele has peculiar tastes of its own, especially when its dazzling costumes sparkle with thousand gems. In a small Belgian town (naturally not Ostend) I once saw the following notice hung over the door of a washerwoman's establishment:-- Anglish linge tooke here from 1 sou Shert, cols, soaks, sleep-shert, pokets. I eet my hatt. The last sentence puzzled me for a long time. Finally I came to the conclusion that it was not intended so much to be a statement of actual fact as an enticement to English people, who would of course take all their washing to a lady commanding so gay and accurate a knowledge of an English catch-phrase. * * * My third example of English as she is spoke is from a notice issued by an out-of-the-way hotel in Italy, which had changed its management:-- "The nobles and noblesses traveller are beg to tell that the direction of this splendid hotel have bettered himself. And the strangers will also find high comforting luxuries, hot cold water coffee bath and all things of perfect establishment and at prices fixed. Table d'hôte best of Italy France everywere. Onclean linens is quick wash and every journals is buy for readers. Beds hard or soaft at the taste of traveller. Soaps everywere plenty. Very cheaper than other hotel. No mosquits no parrot no rat."