The Sunny Side | Page 4

another, and they merged
together and became one long, moving panorama of beauty. We stood
in the corridor and drank it in ... and at intervals we said "Oh-h!" and
"Oh, I say!" and "Oh, I say, really!" And there was one particular spot I
wish I could remember where, so that it might be marked by a suitable
tablet--at the sight of which Simpson was overheard to say, "Mon
Dieu!" for (probably) the first time in his life.
"You know, all these are olive trees, you chaps," he said every five
minutes. "I wonder if there are any olives growing on them?"

"Too early," said Archie. "It's the sardine season now."
It was at Cannes that we saw the first oranges.
"That does it," I said to Myra. "We're really here. And look, there's a
lemon tree. Give me the oranges and lemons, and you can have all the
palms and the cactuses and the olives."
"Like polar bears in the arctic regions," said Myra.
I thought for a moment. Superficially there is very little resemblance
between an orange and a polar bear.
"Like polar bears," I said hopefully.
"I mean," luckily she went on, "polar bears do it for you in the polar
regions. You really know you're there then. Give me the polar bears, I
always say, and you can keep the seals and the walruses and the
penguins. It's the hallmark."
"Right. I knew you meant something. In London," I went on, "it is
raining. Looking out of my window I see a lamp-post (not in flower)
beneath a low, grey sky. Here we see oranges against a blue sky a
million miles deep. What a blend! Myra, let's go to a fancy-dress ball
when we get back. You go as an orange and I'll go as a very blue, blue
sky, and you shall lean against me."
"And we'll dance the tangerine," said Myra.
But now observe us approaching Monte Carlo. For an hour past
Simpson has been collecting his belongings. Two bags, two coats, a
camera, a rug, Thomas, golf-clubs, books--his compartment is full of
things which have to be kept under his eye lest they should evade him
at the last moment. As the train leaves Monaco his excitement is
intense.
"I think, old chap," he says to Thomas, "I'll wear the coats after all."
"And the bags," says Thomas, "and then you'll have a suit."

Simpson puts on the two coats and appears very big and hot.
"I'd better have my hands free," he says, and straps the camera and the
golf-clubs on to himself. "Then if you nip out and get a porter I can
hand the bags out to him through the window."
"All right," says Thomas. He is deep in his book and looks as if he were
settled in his corner of the carriage for the day.
The train stops. There is bustle, noise, confusion. Thomas in some
magical way has disappeared. A porter appears at the open window and
speaks voluble French to Simpson. Simpson looks round wildly for
Thomas. "Thomas!" he cries. "Un moment," he says to the porter.
"Thomas! Mon ami, it n'est pas--I say, Thomas, old chap, where are
you? Attendez un moment. Mon ami--er--reviendra--" He is very hot.
He is wearing, in addition to what one doesn't mention, an ordinary
waistcoat, a woolly waistcoat for steamer use, a tweed coat, an
aquascutum, an ulster, a camera and a bag of golfclubs. The porter,
with many gesticulations, is still hurling French at him.
It is too much for Simpson. He puts his head out of the window and,
observing in the distance a figure of such immense dignity that it can
only belong to the station-master, utters to him across the hurly-burly a
wild call for help.
"Ou est Cooks's homme?" he cries.

III.
SETTLING DOWN
The villa was high up on the hill, having (as Simpson was to point out
several times later) Mentone on its left hand and Monte Carlo on its
right. A long winding path led up through its garden of olives to the
front door, and through the mimosa trees which flanked this door we
could see already a flutter of white aprons. The staff was on the loggia
waiting to greet us.

We halted a moment out of sight of the ladies above and considered
ourselves. It came to us with a sudden shock that we were a very large
party.
"I suppose," said Archie to Simpson, "they do expect all of us and not
only you? You told them that about half London was coming?"
"We're only six," said Myra, "because I've just counted again, but we
seem about twenty."
"It's quite all right," said Simpson cheerfully. "I said we'd be six."
"But six in a letter is much