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Little Collett pointed to the roof of his mother's house twenty paces rearward of a belt of tamarisks, green amid the hollowed yellows of shorebanks yet in shade, crumbling to the sands. Weyburn was attracted by a diminutive white tent, of sentry-box shape, evidently a bather's, quite as evidently a fair bather's. He would have to walk on some way for his dip.
But then I bethought me that I was a Stranger among them; that they might be Jealous of me; and, indeed, when I imparted my design to the Widow-woman Giessens, who was beholden to me, she said, for that I had warned her how poor a guest I was growing, she told me that much interest was needed to obtain one of these Bather's places almost as much, forsooth, as is wanted to get the berth of a Tide-waiter in England, and these rascals were always waiting for the tide.
So there came at last a fine day when I, knowing that the horse-chestnuts were in bloom along the Champs Elysees, threw my rope-soled shoes to a beggar, packed a rusty trunk, and was off for the banks of the Seine. My arrival just the drive from the Gare de Lyon to my studio was like the shock of surf on a bather's breast.
One could not easily improve upon this arrangement, except by furnishing it with cold water and excluding the hot, in deference to the fervency of the climate; but that is forbidden. It would damage the bather's health. The stranger is warned against taking cold baths in India, but even the most intelligent strangers are fools, and they do not obey, and so they presently get laid up.
A pay office, with counter and a set of lockers for the receipt of the bather's watch, money, and other valuables, should be the first object that one meets on entering from the vestibule connecting the establishment with the street. In connection with this office may be the manager's room, and provision for the supply of refreshments.
All that will be required are hot and cold water taps over the edge of the lavatrina, which should also have a waste and overflow. This will serve all purposes, unless a douche and a needle are desired, when the regulating valve of this appliance must be placed conveniently within the bather's reach while standing in the bath.
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