The
French flag fluttering from a pole on the top of the caravan drew
attention to it, and on closer inspection one read above the
entrance--which was approached by a movable wooden staircase--the
proud legend "Casino d'Ault." Yes, Ault actually boasted a casino,
with an entrance fee of ten centimes a head, and in the single room,
which occupied the whole structure, you found a jeu de course, and
other games of hazard, exactly as they had them in the most renowned
and elegant dens of thieves of the fashionable watering places.
Here, however, nobody went to the dogs. Life on the shore was prim
and patriarchal. Whole families sat or lay about on camp stools or
on traveling rugs, the wives in morning wraps, the husbands smoking
in linen suits; the former occupied with needlework, the latter
reading the newspapers or novels. The young people ran about
barefoot and in bathing costume, or lay at the edge of the water
fishing for shrimps, which they rarely or never caught. There were
merry, noisy groups of bathers in the shallow water near the shore,
splashing one another, shrieking at the approach of the larger
waves, bobbing up and down, and shouting encouragement to the
newcomers, who only ventured timidly and by degrees into the chilly
waters.
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