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You know the pater gave us a list of places to go and see in Paris–the Louvre and the Luxembourg, and all that. Well, he never stuck down where they were, and we’ve had to worry it out for ourselves. Jim stopped a fellow this morning and asked him, “Ou est la chemin pour Luxembourg?” The fellow took off his hat and was awfully civil, and said, “Par ici, messieurs,” and took us a walk of about three miles, and landed us at a railway station. He thought we wanted to go to Luxembourg in Germany, or wherever it is–fare about three cool sovs. The fellow hung about us most of the rest of the day, expecting a tip. Likely idea that, after the game he’d had with us! We couldn’t shake him off till we bolted into one of the swimming baths on the river. That smoked him out. Most of these chaps draw the line at a tub. Would you believe it? at our inn, they never seem to have heard of soap in their lives, and we got quite tired of saying “savon” before we found some in a shop. Jim thinks they use it all up for soup. What we get at the inn tastes like it.

Jim is rather a cute beggar. We went to a cafe yesterday to get some grub, and he wanted a glass of milk. We had both clean forgotten the French for milk, and we’d left the dixy at the inn. We tried to make the fellow understand, but he was an ass. We pointed to a picture of a cow hanging on the wall and smacked our lips; and he grinned and rubbed his hands, and said, “Ah, oui. Rosbif! jolly rosbif!” Did you ever hear of such a born idiot? At last Jim had an idea and said, “Apportez- nous du cafe-au-lait sans le cafe.” That fetched it. The fellow twigged at once. Not bad of Jim, was it?

Jolly slow place Paris. The swimming baths are the only place worth going to. Jim went in off the eight-foot springboard. You should have seen the natives sit up at the neat dive he made.

I hope the pater’s not going to ask too much about the Louvre, because we scamped it. The fact is, there was a little unpleasantness with one of the fellows, owing to Jim’s cane happening to scratch one of the pictures by a chap named Rubens. It was quite an accident, as we were only trying to spike a wasp on the frame, and Jim missed his shot. The fellow there made a mule of himself, and lost his temper. So we didn’t see the fun of staying, and cut.

Montreux, Lake of Geneva, August 10.

Couldn’t finish this before we left Paris. We meant to start for here on Friday, but settled to come on on Thursday night after all. You needn’t go telling them at home, but between you and me it was a bit of a bolt.

The fact was, we went to a church called Notre Dame in the morning–not nearly such a snug place as Rugby Chapel, and they charge a penny apiece for the chairs. So we cut the inside and thought we’d go up to the top. It wasn’t a bad lark, and you get a stunning view. The swimming baths looked about the size of a sheet of school paper. There was a door open into the belfry, and as nobody was about, we never thought it would be any harm to have a ring up. We couldn’t get the big bell to go, but most of the others did, and it was enough to deafen you.

I suppose they must have heard the row below, for when we looked down we saw a regular crowd of fellows in the square underneath looking up our way. After that we thought we might as well shut up, and were just going to cut down, when a fellow belonging to the place, who had been somewhere on the top, came rushing round the parapet, flourishing a stick and yelling like a trooper in awfully bad French. We had a good start of him, especially as we shut the door at the top of the stairs behind us. Besides he was fat; so we easily pulled it off.