Would we take our dejeuner with us, packed up in a
basket ?

This we felt was adding insult to injury. The luncheon would
consist of plates and a few indigestible fragments. We decUned
the offer, pretending we would make a fast day of it. But
every day was a fast at madame's, and we were rapidly



STARTING FOR LA CAM ARGUE. 275

tiualifying for that bourne where the wicked cease from
troubling and feasts and fasts are unknown.
It was a lovely morning, white clouds racing along the sky,
which looked so blue and serene beyond them. H. 0. was armed
with some large briquets of salt for catching the flamingoes.
" What I want is a huge catapult," he said, " or a sling on a
gigantic scale. We should then get any number for our South
Kensington Museum. But if I can't put a little salt on their
tails — they're rather wild birds, I fancy, not to say savage — I'll
hurl these at them and bring them down like another Icarus.
