We had to leave Paris for the sea-shore and proceeded to Dieppe, where we took a room in a private house, intending to remain there a fortnight at least, but after our first bath we decided to leave on the morrow to another bathing resort, for the water wasn’t pleasant and the landscape discouragingly rain-blotted. It was to Trouville we gave the preference, and went quietly out of the house with our dressing-bags in rather guilty haste at daybreak, before our landlord was up, to catch the first train to Trouville, feeling like fugitives from justice. We walked on quickly towards the railway station, as there were no cabs about at that early hour. Sergy had to come back again to fetch our boxes and pay our account; he told our bewildered landlord that we were suddenly summoned to Paris on business, but it did not prevent, I am sure, the old man from taking us for a pair of unlawful lovers, who had come stealthily to spend a clandestine night at his house. I found Trouville a most amusing place: no chance of being dull here! It was the height of the season, and the place was full of people who had come to see the races at Dauville, a pretty Norman coast town on the other side of the river La Touque, possessing a splendid hippodrome, where during one week important races take place. Crowds of people came by special trains from Paris, and omnibuses kept constantly arriving with passengers. Our hotel was crammed to the garrets, and it was difficult to get a seat at any of the tables during our meals. Our landlady, a moustached virago, was almost out of her wits to satisfy all the demands. Pretty Parisiennes came to Trouville to show off their beautiful toilettes, which they changed three times a day. In the afternoon they sat on the beach under big brown holland umbrellas, chatting and flirting with their cavaliers, whilst their bare-legged babies, armed with tin pails, made sand cakes and paddled in the sea.