New-York tribune., 1907-10-02
THE TOJVN MOUSE ABROAD
Map Beerbohm1's Unhappy Eppcri-
e1ce on Rural Holiday.

From The London Saturday Review.
People who live in remote parts Of the cOun-
don viii be bored off his head by ordinary rural
things. And so he would be- no doubt. If these
things-these pigs and cows, these buttercups
and daisles-Were going TO hem him In for ever.
palate can he ttllated only by such strange and
abnormal things as may happen TO lurk here
and there in the neighborhOod. But in vain does
ne try 10 baniSh this notion from the minds or
his entertainers. Nainly does he hint that il lS
just a refuge from entertainment, in the spe-
cldI sense OF ms word, that he has fled the
town Yesterday morning l made to walk
several miles from the village where l am stay
ing IN order that l might model dairy.
There are several dairies within a stones throw.
but only the model was deemed worthy Of
my metropolitan eye. Nor indeed, was I much
aVerse from the expedition. \ model dairy!
The phrase had always conjurcd up for 4
pleasant vision Of white tiles cleaning with a
special coolness and whiteness and of a row OF
uhapproachably beautiful and virtuous dairy
maids in pink. churning Whitcst milk, or pattiug
yeIlowest butter, and singing at their work
singing folk~songs in clear fresh young voices.
Figure, then. my beWildeTment when l was in
Quoted into the Teality-a room a-buzz with ma
chinery-black iron wheels whirring overhead,
piston rods, clamps, cylinders, l know not what.
l didn't rdHt to know what: but it was all ex-
plained TO me, at my hosts behest, by the man
IN possession, the man at the wheels. a beetle
proved man With'a red mustache and peaked
black cap and a macintosh suit Even some
milk was shown to me. 1t was being subjected
10 an elaborate chemical process by which any
tubercular properties in IL would presently be
detected.
Well hold no brief for bacfIli; and 7 sI,ppose
l ought TO have reJOtced in the vision Of the man
with the red mustache mounting constant guard
between them ana the villagers. / ought not to
have seen him an ogre who had, swa lloWed a
row Of dairymaids. But that was how I did in
my minds eye clearly see him: and thus on the
way home, my pretence Of enthusiasm for model
CdlrleS was so faint to cloud my hosts brow
with the conviction that l had been merely
bored. In the afternoon he was evidently pre-
occupied by the effort to think OF some avail
able thing that would stagger me And It was
with pathetic CLEAN Of hope in his eyes that
ne at length advised me TO walk up and down
the village street, between 6 and I o'clock on
the chance Of seeing "Moony Henry" the VIII
Iage IDIOT l assured him that / shared neither
the Oriental reverence for madness nor the
medieval knack of getting fun out of it. and
. tilht was perfectly content with my sight of
~vlllaGers who were sane. II quite understand
ne SAID rather codly, meaning that what he
quite understood was the futiity OF dangling
one rural degenerate before the ewes of 4 man
VINO habitually lived in a place from which he
could run down TO EarlswOod -'in no time"
whenever the fancy seized him. Doubling my
power to dispel this Illusion. I wandered out into
the garden Ihe gardener was there and /
began 10 question him about the flowers
My questions may not have been very inteHi-
gent but they were prompted by q quite sim
cere interest The gardener evidently regarded
them as but the gasps Of a fish out of water
the hollow grOanS OF q starving man AT length
ing an inquiry as to whether sweet peas We're or
were not hardy, he said: IT'S awful duh here
aDouts for folks that come from London" and
added that IL was a pity l had not come last
spring; IN tho next village but one so he told
me- there had been a two-headed calf