Never speak to strange men .sx BY DIANA ATHILL .sx Conversation , as Oscar Wilde might almost have said , is the easy art of losing friends and alienating people ; if you've ever been inescapably bound by the threads of conversation of two such gentleman as Mr. Ball and Mr. Baring , you're likely to agree .sx If you haven't , take warning and plan an escape route in advance .sx THERE are often too few chairs on steamers which visit Adriatic islands , and those few are shackled together , to be queued for until a morose sailor consents to unlock them .sx This gives them rarity value .sx Uncomfortable though they are , it seems a privilege to have one , even if you would rather be leaning on the rail .sx So if two men insist on giving up their hard-won deck-chairs to two women , it would be ungracious of the women to refuse .sx That was how I and my cousin Laura met Mr. Ball and Mr. Baring .sx They came from Oldham , had been visiting a Trade Fair , and were now on a spree , intending to spend one night in the town for which we were bound .sx Mr. Ball , who boomed and had three strands of hair trained across his skull , was about fifty-five .sx Mr. Baring , who whispered and wore pince-nez , was seventy if he was a day .sx They were probably the kindest men we shall ever meet and they were both mines of information on draught-proof floor coverings and plastic paints .sx Mr. Ball was also widely travelled and had brought back from Malaya , Peru , Queensland , and the Friendly Islands an astonishing collection of statistics concerning measurements .sx He could- and did- describe how high , wide , deep , thick and heavy was any object you might like to name in any of those places .sx Mr. Baring was less enterprising .sx This Trade Fair had been his first journey abroad and his preoccupations were chiefly dietary .sx By the end of the first morning Laura , who has less sense of social obligation than I have , had sidled out of her deck chair and was sitting on a hatch beside a medical student with a guitar .sx I was still stuck , and trying to view the experiences as a salutary discipline .sx I hope that Laura and I travel to see new places and enjoy new beauties in nature and art , but it is true that when we have encounters we like them to be worth having .sx The encounters I had imagined for this journey were certainly remote from Mr. Ball and Mr. Baring in everything but sex ( if , in this context , you could call it that ) , but I reminded myself of how kind they were and I told myself that anyway it would be over when we reached our destination .sx That was the first day .sx On the second I was beyond thought .sx I was not suffering , but I had become numb in all my faculties .sx . a point of boredom I had never reached before .sx When lunch came round again it seemed to be by immemorial custom that I was listening , as I ate , to an account of the exact dimensions of Mr. Ball's verandah in Kuala Lumpur ( some eighteen inches longer than his verandah in Lima ) , and the weight of the largest and the smallest sweet potato he had ever eaten .sx Meanwhile , as inertia crept up on me , the venerable Mr. Baring was becoming more lively .sx At first he had been slightly oppressed by his companion's sophistication , but when the talk turned to food he perked up to the extent of telling me which breakfast cereals his grandchildren preferred .sx The journey ended that evening .sx As the gang-plank went down , Mr. Ball said to me , " I suppose you have a room booked ?sx " " No , " I said , without thinking .sx " We'll get an address from the tourist office .sx " " You're in luck !sx " exclaimed Mr. Ball .sx " Look what I've got .sx A letter from the tourist chief in the capital to his man here , telling him to look after us .sx You just stick with us and you'll be all right .sx " Laura began to edge backwards against the surge towards the gangway .sx I began to babble about being a nuisance- but it was too late .sx The porters had been unleashed , Mr. Ball had caught one and handed over our baggage as well as his own , and there we were on the quay with our benevolent friends , obviously " together .sx " Other people were borne off in large numbers towards adventure .sx Laura and I ( not , I suspected unhappily , on speaking terms ) got meekly into a taxi with Mr. Ball and Mr. Baring , the last traces of our initiative vanishing as we did so .sx We were visiting a small , thickly walled and lovely town with straggling outskirts .sx The straggle was long and thin- the mountains came too close for it to spread backwards- and unless you were careful , we knew , you could find yourself staying some way from the old town .sx We had hoped to find rooms within the walls , or only just outside , and before Mr. Ball got to work on the tourist chief we said as much .sx " Oh no , " he said , shocked .sx " You wouldn't like that .sx You wouldn't like the noise .sx " " But cars aren't allowed inside , " I pointed out .sx " It isn't cars .sx It's the talking and the music- they go on all night in these places .sx And besides- the drains .sx We'll find a nice , clean , modern place , don't you worry .sx " We were not worrying , we were panicking , but I was still numb and Laura was speechless with rage .sx We could not think of words that would not have been rude and wounding to this kind , kind man .sx So before long Mr. Ball , Mr. Baring , Laura and I were being welcomed to an eminently respectable , exquisitely clean , comfortable , modern house , a good half-hour's walk ( the trams did not go that way ) outside the walls .sx And then , before the night was out , the rains came .sx It rained and blew for five days without stopping .sx Since it was August , widely advertised as the Adriatic's most benign month , we had not stopped at bringing no raincoats and no umbrellas :sx we had brought no coats and no sensible shoes either .sx Had we been staying in the town itself we could each day have darted across into the City Cafe@2 where it was possible to live a full life for hours on end without setting foot out of doors ; we should have had a choice of eating places within a few yards ; we could have danced every evening .sx As it was , on the rare occasions when the rain diminished to a drizzle we would hurry out in an attempt to reach the town before we were drenched .sx Once or twice we did reach the town- but never before we were drenched , and about the only amenity not provided by the City Cafe@2 was a drying room .sx All this , as an act of God , might have been borne .sx The truly testing aspect of the situation was that no aeroplane could take off from the airfield , and Mr. Ball and Mr. Baring had planned to return to their Fair , after only one night , by air .sx The local inhabitants , anxious for their district's reputation for clemency , had decided that the best thing to do about all this rain was to belittle it .sx Yes , of course , they said every morning at the airline office , " It will stop tonight , planes will certainly be leaving tomorrow .sx " So our friends did not change their plans and go by boat .sx No .sx They were immured with us in that spotless house for five of the longest days I have ever lived through .sx We expected them to be fretful at this grave hitch in their plans , but they did not seem to mind it .sx Mr. Ball had known far longer and- incredible as it seemed- duller delays on savannah and prairie , about which he now had time to tell us in detail , while Mr. Baring , though gently distressed at first , in the end found his imprisonment positively rewarding .sx To begin with , his digestion was upset , and this led him to the discovery of yoghourt :sx a discovery which he was clearly going to recall throughout his declining years as an important event ; though perhaps not always at half-hourly intervals , as he did at the time .sx However long we stayed in bed every day , we had to get up at last- and there they would be , cheerful and kind , ready for talk and paper-games involving arithmetic of which , it turned out , the resourceful Mr. Ball knew a great many .sx When they said charming things to us- how grateful they were for our company , how pleased to have found us such a nice house- we could not meet their eyes .sx Mr. Baring sometimes made it worse by taking us aside and whispering that if we wished to go out and enjoy ourselves , to escape from two old fogeys , we must not hesitate to do so .sx Conscious of our bilious rage , suppressed , we feared so badly , we were driven by guilt ( not to mention the rain ) to effusive protests .sx Good heavens no , what nonsense , we would say , and settle down to another paper game .sx The climax of each day came at dinner time .sx We might have been listening to wild music , we might have been dancing , we might have been meeting young men with bold , flashing eyes ; and instead , because our landlady served no meals , we would splash across to the next-door pension under umbrellas held by Mr. Ball and Mr. Baring , there to eat 6Wiener schnitzel at a long table with seven middle-aged married couples from Wuppertal .sx Relief came on the sixth day .sx Having learned that bits of purple storm cloud look deceptively like blue sky when seen through the chinks in shutters , we had not bothered to consult the sky .sx The first we knew of the weather's change was when Mr. Ball knocked on our door and told us that a taxi had come to take them to the airport .sx " Well , young ladies , " he said , " we have shared an interesting experience .sx The rainfall in these last five days has been half as much again as the average for the four months June to September , inclusive .sx " As the taxi bumped away we collapsed on our beds and exchanged the first look we had dared to give each other since our arrival .sx We still had five more days in this legendary place .sx " We'll move this morning , " said Laura .sx " We'll move right into the very middle of the town and we'll find a room above a cafe@2 which has music , looking on to the market place .sx " " And what's more , " said I , " we'll hardly ever be in it .sx I'm only going to stop swimming in order to eat , and stop eating in order to talk , and stop talking in order to dance .sx " But as we spoke our landlady came in .sx She carried a tray on which were two little glasses of cherry brandy and two big slices of home-made sponge cake .sx " 3Sun , yes ?sx " she said .sx " 3I am so 'appy for you , " and she beamed with pleasure .sx Not only was she the mistress of a respectable , clean , modern house , but she , too , was- oh ominous word- as kind as kind can be .sx How could we possibly run out on anyone so admirable , for no definite reason ?sx Thus , though our holiday had begun at last , we were still under the wing of Mr. Ball and Mr. Baring .sx Try as we might , no harm was going to come to us .sx In the small hours of each day left to us , after some nineteen hours of sight-seeing , swimming , talking , drinking , and dancing , we still had to leave those bewitching noisy streets ; we still had to trudge for half an hour back to our eminently respectable lodgings .sx And so respectable were they that once we had reached the door our escorts- those , that is , who were stalwart enough still to be with us- never dreamed of doing anything more than shake our hands .sx Here , in this country village , she had spent her childhood .sx Here she had first been in love .sx