"It would be a thousand pities for so charming a lady to poison herself.
But since you wish to take that step, why choose the Casino which has a
reputation to keep up? Are there not hotels----"

"I tell you it was only aspirin."

"Alas, we are sufficiently familiar with that tale! Now, Madam, let us
not lose a moment! It is a question of life and death."

"Aspirin, I tell you----"

"Kindly submit, or the three of us will be obliged to employ force."

The stomach-pump was produced.

It is the drawback of all sea-side places that half the landscape is
unavailable for purposes of human locomotion, being covered by useless
water. Mentone is more unfortunate than most of them, for its Hinterland
is so cloven and contorted that unless you keep on the main roads, or
content yourself with short but pleasant strolls, you will soon find all
progress barred by some natural obstruction. And one really cannot walk
along the esplanade all day long, though it is worth while, once in a
lifetime, continuing that promenade as far as Cap Martin, if only in
memory of the inspiration which Symonds drew therefrom. Who, he
asks--who can resist the influence of Greek ideas at the Cape St.
Martin? Anybody can, nowadays. The place is encrusted with smug villas
of parvenus (wherein we include the Empress Eugenie), to say nothing of
that preposterous hotel at the very point, which disfigures the country
for leagues around.