Page:A book of the west; being an introduction to Devon and Cornwall.djvu/405

 CHAPTER XVIII. DARTMOUTH

WILL tell you how I first saw Dartmouth before I proceed to say anything about it, and then the reader will perhaps understand the peculiar affection with which I write about it. It happened early one June that I had made every arrangement to go with a friend a walking tour among the Dolomite Alps. We were to meet in town and cross the Channel together to Antwerp.

At the last moment some particularly vexatious business cropped up which detained me, and I had to wire to my friend that I could not be with him on the day fixed, but would, if possible, meet him in Cologne. In two days I saw it was all up with my Continental excursion, and I was obliged to telegraph to Cologne that my friend must go on his way by himself.

Now when a man has been slaving at his desk 323