"We had been in the house perhaps five minutes, when the proprietor took us one side and remarked, casually, that while he would not advise any one in the establishment to drink, if one must, he could furnish much better liquor than could be had in the village. And it was injurious to those taking the baths to walk much either before or after. "It is a good thing to get out of the way of rum. "The bar man was an American who could mix a cocktail, and so we drank to the old flag and went to our dinner. The wine at the place is excellent. "After dinner we walked up to the village with an American to whom I was introduced, and he took us to a very comfortable place where the cognac was good, very good, and we sampled it several times. "If there is a place on earth where the alcohol appetite can be cured it is here. "On the way down the main street of the village we stopped in another place like the first one, for the purpose of seeing whether there was any difference in cognac. "There are superior facilities for getting away from rum at this place. "There is a museum in the village which has a smoking room attached, which we visited that evening. The cognac was better than at the first place. "To have the vile stuff out of reach is a great help to the struggling victim of strong drink. "What we would call a drug store in America was the next place we visited, to have some prescriptions filled, and the proprietor, an Englishman, insisted upon our tasting some very old brandy he kept for medicinal purposes. [Illustration: THE PATH TO THE VILLAGE.] "There is no place in the world where you are so safe from the destroyer as here. [Sidenote: REFORM AT ST. GERVAIS.] "Returning to the Cure we thought it unfair not to patronize it. We did--twice. "St. Gervais offers inducements for those really trying to reform. "We went to our room and sat down to a quiet game of poker. It was suggested that it would be dry work, and a bottle of cognac was ordered, and if I remember, there wasn't enough left to make a cocktail for a flea. The very smell was gone. "For absolute absence of temptation to drink, St. Gervais is the place. I will write you concerning the water when I have tasted some. "P. S.--I forgot to mention that another thing you come here for is to get regular sleep, and plenty of it, in the early part of the night. Having resolved upon this, we played poker till three in the morning.