LATER YEARS 189 



you and me to Paris in '77 ? The French Association meets 

 there, and it has asked those of the B.A. who haven't gone to 

 Australia to be their guests. I have to make a speech at the 

 opening meeting on Monday, which I have written out and will 

 read. They were very nice to me in '77 as a youngster ; I was 

 the only Englishman there, and at a dinner I got a highly honorable 

 place. After the F. A. we shall go to some little place on the coast 

 and have some bathing." 



The next letter is dated c/o W. E. Langstaff, Havre, 

 till 27th July, 1914. 



" We got here on Saturday morning after a stormy passage ; 

 but we all slept well. . . . To-day our proceedings commence 

 in the theatre at 2. There are to be speeches by the Maire, the 

 President (Gautier, an old friend of ours) and me. I have 

 written it out and will read it. It isn't long ; it treats of inter- 

 national amity, etc. I am afraid there isn't much promise of 

 an interesting meeting, judging by the programme. About 

 100 B.A. sen. people are here or to be here. . . . After we leave 

 the Langstaffs we are going to a little hotel Des Bains et de la 

 Plage at Les Petites Dalles, Seine Inferieure, to try to get some 

 bathing." 



The next communication to Mr. Fyfe was a card dated 

 2nd August, 1914 : 



" I am afraid all plans for the present are at an end. We must 

 just ' wait and see.' I fancy we should have left Havre yester- 

 day, but we thought things would hang fire for a day or two. In 

 the meantime mobilisation is declared here, and we must cut and 

 run or else get a permis de stjour. The trains are all blocked 

 with soldiers going to the frontier, and I am afraid we shall be 

 detained here some days, We shall get back by Havre. There 

 are hardly any French here now ; only a few stranded English 

 families. The final meeting of the French Association took 

 place on Friday, and I thanked them for hospitality." 



