Mont St. Michel, pinnacle on pinnacle, rises directly before us five hundred feet into the blue sky and becomes more and more distinct as we approach until we finally reach a stand-still with the nose of our auto poked against--a blank wall. Where to now? Above rises the wall with no sign of a gate, and on either side and below us stretch the wet sands,--no thoroughfare there surely. However, over an elevated foot-bridge come a man and a woman, the former covers up the auto, while the latter assures us that the Hôtel Poulard Âiné is the only place for a gentleman to breakfast, a statement which causes high words with the runner of another house who arrives a moment late. But "Madame" carries the day and we follow her over the foot-bridge which the high tides cover, and rounding a corner pass under a gateway and into the quaintest spot in France. The way is narrow and steep, disappearing upwards under a second gateway, but our guide turns us promptly into a great kitchen with a bell above its entrance clanging for the meal about to be served. One finds these kitchens in France, but I have no memory of them elsewhere. Always spotlessly clean, the walls hung with shining copper utensils, while the cook, in snowy cap and apron, turns the spit where some fowls are roasting before a roaring fire, whose glow is most acceptable after our swift ride through the air. These cooks are personages in France and the proper making of an omelette an affair of State, as it were. This man greets us with a salutation so magnificent that I return it in kind as nearly as I know how--but feel that I fall short. [Illustration: MONT SAINT-MICHEL, FROM THE SOUTH By permission of Messrs. Neurdein] Every house in St. Michel climbs up the rocks. This one climbs high and I must mount four flights of stairs to find the lavatories. As for a lift, Mont St. Michel permits no such desecration of her ancient usages. If you come here you will use the legs God gave you. After breakfast, which by the way was excellent, I descend to the street with the intention of exploring the place alone, but I reckon without my host, who, in this instance, proves to be the old lady who met us on arrival. She waves aside my gentle remonstrance, tells me that I may never come again and had best see it all, and no one can do as well for me as herself. I yield perforce, also because of her cheery old face; God bless her! I have no doubt but that she is a good mother to some one. So I start, Yama and Jean following closely. The latter will fully appreciate all he sees, but the former will not know any more two hours hence than he does now. But let him come; as my instructor in German used to say when I could not remember the dative case, that she should continue to pour it into one ear in the hopes that some of it would stick before it passed out of the other. I think she was wrong, for I never knew how I got into that case and was always at a loss as to how I was to get out.