274 ALONGSHORE v 



speak a word of French, but you, you speak it — 

 comme un Anglais bien instruitf 



I was, it appeared, a large boat-owner visiting 

 Boulogne with one of my captains in order to pick 

 up ideas for my fishing-fleet. Boulogne, they 

 hastened to explain to me, with all a Frenchman's 

 charming pride in his own town, is the greatest 

 fishing port in France, and as a market superior 

 to Billingsgate. But the herring season was so far 

 a total failure. 



We left the police papers upon the bedroom 

 table. With my most imposing air (what Jim 

 calls my 'hell-about-it gyte') I strode downstairs, 

 across the clattering hall, and out to dinner. Jim 

 followed on tip-toe. 



Boulogne that Saturday night seemed to be 

 composed of three things : dark water and ships' 

 masts and scattered lights — ^yellow little lights, 

 haphazard spots in the mist, with little drab people 

 and gawky two-wheeled carts crawling about 

 among them. In fishing ports, when the season 

 is a failure, the very houses seem to droop. We 

 felt, I think, Boulogne's mysterious connexion by 

 water with all the far hazy world; saw in mind 

 the lighthouses of other Continents and the loom 

 of their coasts; and then, looking the other way, 



