gossip in the “Miroir des Sports, ” the newest political dirt in the fiery “Action Française” and What’s What in the Paris Love Mart in “Fantasio” and that pale green classic, “Frou-frou. ” Dinner time devoted to the conscientious stowing away of commodious beefsteaks and “pommes frites” at a large table, populated by blase travelling salesmen, whose chatter is quite as typical as the smoking car banter of the same fraternity at home. Twilight turned over to a prolonged cup of black coffee at a tin table under the trees, followed by enough vieux Calvados and old Cognac and yarns from the “voyageurs de commerce” to induce a deep slumber which carried one nicely into the next morning and the pink-cheeked ˮfemme de chambre’s” knock on the door.
Brittany, under such circumstances, can be most delightful and unforlorn, not at all the rather bleak and galeswept place that it appears to the five-day visitor in rapid flight. There are no pressing factors such as an impatient chauffeur or a maiden aunt oppressed by the lack of bathtubs, nor any obligation to visit double starred grottos merely because
they are in the guide book. One can linger in the village pub without qualms of conscience, or chin with blooming patisserie maids unmindful of the glances of envious disapproval of itinerant teadrinkers from across the Channel. There is no necessity of holding to American collegiate standards of dress. Where passing Princetonians feel constrained to be togged in well pressed light tweeds and pearl gray felt hats of bewildering immaculateness, and the boys from Urbana and Ann Arbor affect the most country-clubby of plus fours, a strolling tramp with a few hundred franc notes folded in his hip pocket may revel in a delicious and nondescript ensemble: a French shirt with tails which come to the knees (these, when trimmed, provide superb paint rags), a deformed Panama with an ancient patine of inky finger marks, a battered homespun coat, dusty flannels and a French ˮgift” necktie whose moire gaudiness bans it from public display in the city. How free one feels in such loose and undefinable garb, with one’s plans quite as vague as the crease in one’s trousers!
This small excursion began in the town of
18th century house in josselin
Brittany, under such circumstances, can be most delightful and unforlorn, not at all the rather bleak and galeswept place that it appears to the five-day visitor in rapid flight. There are no pressing factors such as an impatient chauffeur or a maiden aunt oppressed by the lack of bathtubs, nor any obligation to visit double starred grottos merely because
they are in the guide book. One can linger in the village pub without qualms of conscience, or chin with blooming patisserie maids unmindful of the glances of envious disapproval of itinerant teadrinkers from across the Channel. There is no necessity of holding to American collegiate standards of dress. Where passing Princetonians feel constrained to be togged in well pressed light tweeds and pearl gray felt hats of bewildering immaculateness, and the boys from Urbana and Ann Arbor affect the most country-clubby of plus fours, a strolling tramp with a few hundred franc notes folded in his hip pocket may revel in a delicious and nondescript ensemble: a French shirt with tails which come to the knees (these, when trimmed, provide superb paint rags), a deformed Panama with an ancient patine of inky finger marks, a battered homespun coat, dusty flannels and a French ˮgift” necktie whose moire gaudiness bans it from public display in the city. How free one feels in such loose and undefinable garb, with one’s plans quite as vague as the crease in one’s trousers!
This small excursion began in the town of
18th century house in josselin