Had Ault been a professedly
fashionable bathing place, one might have been tempted to think that
this churchyard, with its cheering records in stone and iron of the
longevity of the natives, had been set down in the very center of
the town to encourage the visitors.
The Hotel de France recommended itself by extreme cleanliness, but
otherwise it was very simple. The rooms contained only such
furniture as was absolutely necessary, the dining-room was bare of
decoration, and therefore happily free of those gruesome colored
prints which the commercial traveller delights to sow broadcast over
the unsuspecting country towns. Only the so-called salon boasted the
luxury of a cottage piano, a polished table, a few cane chairs, and
a looking-glass over the chimneypiece, on which lay a box of
dominoes and a backgammon board, eloquently suggestive of mine
host's ideas as to the most suitable occupation for his guests.
The hotel proprietors were as simple and homely as their house. The
man wore a seaman's cap and a blue coat with brass anchor buttons,
and was more than delighted if you took him for a seafaring man. He
had, in fact, been to sea once, as ship's cook, or steward, or
something of the sort. Now he sat most of the time in the cafe of
the hotel, supplied the neighbors with little drams of cognac, and
told the visitors endless stories of the buying and selling of
property in the little town.
Pages:
360
361
362
363
364
365
366
367
368
369
370
371
372
373
374
375
376
377
378
379
380
381
382
383
384