The governor, however, was obdurate.  He had a way of being obdurate when anything irritated him, and Baeader began to be one of these things.  Cancale might be all very well for me, but how about the hotel for him, who had nothing to do, no pictures to paint?  He had passed that time in his life when he could sleep under a boat with water pouring down the back of his neck through a tarpaulin full of holes.

“The hotel, messieurs!  Imagine!  Is it posseeble that monsieur imagine for one moment that Baeader would arrange such annoyances?  I remember ze hotel quite easily.  It is not like, of course, ze Grand Hotel of Paris, but it is simple, clean, ze cuisine superb, and ze apartment fine and hospitable.  Remembare it is Baeader.”

“And the baths?” broke out the governor savagely.

Baeader’s face was a study; a pained, deprecating expression passed over it as he uncovered his head, his glazed headpiece glistening in the sun.

“Baths, monsieur—­and ze water of ze sea everywhere?”

These assurances of future comfort were not overburdened with details, but they served to satisfy and calm the governor, I pleading, meanwhile, that Baeader had always proved himself a man of resource, quite ready when required with either a meal or an answer.

So we started for Cancale.

On the way our courier grew more and more enthusiastic.  We were traveling in a four-seated carriage, Baeader on the box, pointing out to us in English, after furtive conversations with the driver in French, the principal points of interest.  With many flourishes he led us to Parame, one of those Normandy cities which consist of a huge hotel with enormous piazzas, a beach ten miles from the sea, and a small so-called fishing-village as a sort of marine attachment.  To give a realistic touch, a lone boat is always being tarred somewhere down at the end of one of its toy streets, two or three donkey-carts and donkeys add an air of picturesqueness, and the usual number of children with red pails and shovels dig in the sand of the roadside.  All the fish that are sold come from the next town.  It was too early in the season when we reached there for girls in sabots and white caps, the tide from Paris not having set in.  The governor hailed it with delight.  “Why the devil didn’t you tell me about this place before?  Here we have been fooling away our time.”

“But it is only Parame, monsieur,” with an accent on the “only” and a lifting of the hands.  “Cancale speciale will charm you; ze coast it is so immediately flat, and ze life of ze sea charmante.  Nevare at Parame, always at Cancale.”  So we drove on.  The governor pacified but anxious—­only succumbing at my argument that Baeader knew all Normandy thoroughly, and that an old courier like him certainly could be trusted to select a hotel.

* * * * *

You all know the sudden dip from the rich, flat country of Normandy down the steep cliffs to the sea.  Cancale is like the rest of it.  The town itself stands on the brink of a swoop to the sands; the fishing-village proper, where the sea packs it solid in a great half-moon, with a light burning on one end that on clear nights can be seen as far as Mme. Poulard’s cozy dining-room at St. Michel.