If you travel on the highroad which skirts the cliff-bound coast of Normandy you may come to a board bearing the legend "Hottetot-sur-Mer" and a hand pointing down a narrow gorge.

If you follow the direction and descend for half a mile you come to a couple of villas, a humble cafe, some fishermen's cottages, one of which is also a general shop and a _debit de tabac_, a view of a triangle of sea, and eventually to a patch of shingly beach between two great bastions of cliffs.

The beach itself contains a diminutive jetty, a tiny fleet of fishing smacks, some nets, three bathing machines joined together by ropes on which hang a few towels and bathing costumes, a dog, a child or so with spade and bucket, two English maiden ladies writing picture post-cards, a Frenchman in black, reading a Rouen newspaper under a gray umbrella, his wife and daughter, and a stall of mussels presided over by an old woman with skin like seaweed.

Just above the beach, on one side of the road leading up the gorge, is a miniature barn with a red cupola, which is the Casino, and, on the other, a long, narrow, blue-washed building with the words written in great black letters across the facade, "Hotel de la Plage." As soon as Emmy could travel, she implored Septimus to find her a quiet spot by the sea whither the fashionable do not resort.

Septimus naturally consulted Hegisippe Cruchot.