imposing size make it a landmark, and the seascape from its windows
must be unrivalled.

[Illustration: BRIGHTON.]




CHAPTER IV

BRIGHTON


"Kind, cheerful, merry Dr. Brighton." Thackeray's testimonial is as apt
to-day as when it was written, but the doctor is not one of the
traditional type. Here is no bedside manner and no misplaced sympathy,
in fact he is rather a hardhearted old gentleman to those patients who
are really ill in mind or body and his remedies are of the "hair of the
dog that bit you" type.

Londoners take Brighton as a matter of course and--as Londoners--are
rarely enthusiastic. It takes a Frenchman to give the splendid line of
buildings which forms the finest front in the world the admiration that
is certainly its due. When one has had time to dissect the great town,
appreciation is keener; there are several Brightons; there is a town
built on a cliff, another with spacious lawns on the sea level, and a
third, the old Brighton, bounded by the limits of the original fishing
village, and, with all its brilliance, having a distinctly briny smell
as of fish markets and tarred rope and sun-baked seaweed when you are
near the shingle. This last is nearly an ever-present scent, for the