There were well-
dusted books on the tables, and Francesca wanted to sit down
immediately to The Charming Cora, reprinted from The Girl's Own
Paper. Salemina meantime had tempted fate by looking under the bed,
where she found the floor so exquisitely neat that she patted it
affectionately with her hand.
We had scarcely donned our dry clothing when the hotel proprietor
sent a jaunting-car for our drive to the seven-o'clock table d'hote
dinner. We carefully avoided our travelling companions that night,
but learned the next morning that the Frenchman had slept on four
chairs, and rejected the hotel coffee with the remark that it was
not 'veritable'--a criticism in which he was quite justified. Our
comparative Englishman had occupied a cot in a room where the tin
bathtubs were kept. He was writing to The Times at the moment of
telling me his woes, and, without seeing the letter, I could divine
his impassioned advice never to travel in the west of Ireland in
rainy weather. He remarked (as if quoting from his own
communication) that the scenery was magnificent, but that there was
an entirely insufficient supply of hot water; that the waiters had
the appearance of being low comedians, and their service was of the
character one might expect from that description; that he had been
talking before breakfast with a German gentleman, who had sat on a
wall opposite the village of Dugort, in the island of Achill, from
six o'clock in the morning until nine, and in that time he had seen
coming out of an Irish hut three geese, eight goslings, six hens,
fifteen chickens, two pigs, two cows, two barefooted girls, the
master of the house leading a horse, three small children carrying
cloth bags filled with school-books, and finally a strapping mother
leading a donkey loaded with peat-baskets; that all this poverty and
ignorance and indolence and filth was spoiling his holiday; and
finally, that if he should be as greatly disappointed in the fishing
as he had been in the hotel accommodations--here we almost fainted
from suspense--he should be obliged to go home! And not only that,
but he should feel it his duty to warn others of what they might
expect.
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