TWO YOUNG NATURALISTS. 183 



alternating with bills, blue, yellow, red, announcing 

 the wonderful properties of divers new elixirs and 

 little known liquors, with the names and addresses of 

 the makers in letters of gold. 



At the end, a gigantic yellow bill announcing the 

 times of departure and arrival of the trains of the 

 Western Kailway Co., served in lieu of a curtain. Such 

 was the establishment, and many like it may be found 

 quite near to some fashionable bathing-places a 

 village alehouse endeavouring to assume the appear- 

 ance of a town hotel, on account of the wandering 

 tourists who occasionally find their way to it. 



The peasants, excited by the native cider, the 

 intoxicating beverage made from the apples of the 

 district, and possibly also by the unusual incidents of 

 the day, smoked, vociferated, and shouted, each at the 

 top of his voice, and rattled down their dominoes on 

 the marble tables with noisy emphasis. 



The doctor, as well as his two companions, found 

 himself ill at ease in so numerous and boisterous an 

 assembly, so that as the first violence of the storm had 

 passed, the downpour of thunder- showers and hail 

 being succeeded by a steady rain, he hastened to get 

 out and find some other shelter. 



A few paces farther on there was the outskirts of 

 the fair, with its rifle-shooting at a target of pipes, its 

 peripatetic pastrycooks, whose small establishments 

 diffused for some distance around them odours of the 



