We were not allowed to have our way without a warning. There always is someone to keep you in the straight and narrow path. As we were turning into the low road a passer-by remonstrated.
"If you're going to Saint-Paul-du-Var," he explained, "you want to keep to the high road. It's very muddy down there, and will take you longer."
When our adviser saw that we did not stop, he raised his voice and called, "There are no signposts and you may get lost."
"You take the high road and we'll take the low," sang back the Artist.
He who had meant well disappeared, shaking his head. No doubt, as he shuffled along, he was muttering to himself over the inexplicable actions of _ces drôles d'Anglais_.
The miles passed coolly and pleasantly. Trees and bushes did not allow many glimpses of the outside world. The dogs that barked were behind farmhouse gates, and we had use for our stones only at an occasional jackrabbit. "At" is a convenient preposition. It gives one latitude. Jackrabbits on the Riviera are not like human products of the south. They jump quickly. They jump, too, in directions that cannot be foretold. After one particularly bad throw, the Artist explained that he did not enjoy inflicting pain. His boyish instincts had long ago been controlled by reading S. P. C. A. literature. I told him that I thought he had given up baseball too early in life. So had I. The jackrabbits escaped.
I am rarely oblivious to the duty of the noon hour. Although I knew the Artist's habit of stopping suddenly, and the hopelessness of budging him by plea or argument as long as the reason for stopping remained, it had not occurred to me that there would be a risk in taking the low road. We had started in plenty of time, and as we were out for a medieval town, I thought he would not be tempted until we reached the vicinity of a restaurant. But about a mile below Saint-Paul-du-Var the low road brought us to a view of the city that would have held me at any other time than twelve noon. I tried the old expedient of walking faster, and calling attention to something in the distance. When the Artist halted, moved uncertainly a few yards, and stopped again, we were lost. He did not need to pronounce the inevitable words, "I'll just get this little bit." The Artist's "just" means anything from twenty to ninety minutes.