gentlemen's and four ladies'? Yes, to be sure. Mr. Goodchild
hoped the company were not to be expected to wear helmets, to
please Mr. Idle.

Beginning to recover his temper at about this point, Mr. Goodchild
voluntarily reported that if you wanted to be primitive, you could
be primitive here, and that if you wanted to be idle, you could be
idle here. In the course of some days, he added, that there were
three fishing-boats, but no rigging, and that there were plenty of
fishermen who never fished. That they got their living entirely by
looking at the ocean. What nourishment they looked out of it to
support their strength, he couldn't say; but, he supposed it was
some sort of Iodine. The place was full of their children, who
were always upside down on the public buildings (two small bridges
over the brook), and always hurting themselves or one another, so
that their wailings made more continual noise in the air than could
have been got in a busy place. The houses people lodged in, were
nowhere in particular, and were in capital accordance with the
beach; being all more or less cracked and damaged as its shells
were, and all empty--as its shells were. Among them, was an
edifice of destitute appearance, with a number of wall-eyed windows
in it, looking desperately out to Scotland as if for help, which
said it was a Bazaar (and it ought to know), and where you might
buy anything you wanted--supposing what you wanted, was a little
camp-stool or a child's wheelbarrow. The brook crawled or stopped
between the houses and the sea, and the donkey was always running
away, and when he got into the brook he was pelted out with stones,
which never hit him, and which always hit some of the children who
were upside down on the public buildings, and made their
lamentations louder. This donkey was the public excitement of