Paris providing them, apparently, with no entertainment, they started, after a couple of days, _Aristide duce et auspice Pujol_, on their railway tour through France, to Aristide a pilgrimage of unimaginable depression. They began with Chartres, continued with the Châteaux of the Loire, and began to work their way south. Nothing that Aristide could do roused them from their apathy. They were exasperatingly docile, made few complaints, got up, entrained, detrained, fed, excursioned, slept, just as they were bidden. But they looked at nothing, enjoyed nothing (save perhaps English newspapers and knitting), and uttered nothing by way of criticism or appreciation when Aristide attempted to review the wonders through which they had passed. They did not care to know the history, authentic or Pujolic, of any place they visited; they were impressed by no scene of grandeur, no corner of exquisite beauty. To go on and on, in a dull, non-sentient way, so long as they were spared all forethought, all trouble, all afterthought, seemed to be their ideal of travel. Sometimes Aristide, after a fruitless effort to capture their interest, would hold his head, wondering whether he or the Ducksmith couple were insane. It was a dragon-fly personally conducting two moles through a rose-garden. Once only, during the early part of their journey, did a gleam of joyousness pierce the dull glaze of Mr. Ducksmith's eyes. He had procured from the bookstall of a station a pile of English newspapers, and was reading them in the train, while his wife knitted the interminable sock. Suddenly he folded a _Daily Telegraph_, and handed it over to Aristide so that he should see nothing but a half-page advertisement. The great capitals leaped to Aristide's eyes:-- "DUCKSMITH'S DELICATE JAMS." "I am _the_ Ducksmith," said he. "I started and built up the business. When I found that I could retire, I turned it into a limited liability company, and now I am free and rich and able to enjoy the advantages of foreign travel." Mrs. Ducksmith started, sighed, and dropped a stitch. "Did you also make pickles?" asked Aristide. "I did manufacture pickles, but I made my name in jam. In the trade you will find it an honoured one." "It is that in every nursery in Europe," Aristide declared, with polite hyperbole. "I have done my best to deserve my reputation," said Mr. Ducksmith, as impervious to flattery as to impressions of beauty. "_Pécaïre!_" said Aristide to himself, "how can I galvanize these corpses?"