The Senator, discovering to his surprise that the hotel clerk was a
lady, lifted his hat. He did not appear to be surprised, that wasn't the
Senator's way, but he forgot what he had to say, which proved it. While
he was hesitating she looked at him humorously and said "Good evening,
sir!" She was a florid person who wore this sense of humour between hard
blue eyes and an iron jaw. Momma took a passionate dislike to her on the
spot.
"Oh, then you do," said poppa. "You parlay Anglay. That's a good thing
I'm sure, for I know mighty little Fransay. May I ask what sort of
accommodation you can give Mrs. Wick, Miss Wick, and myself for
to-night? Anything on the first floor?"
"What rooms you require are one double one single, yes? Certainly.
Francois, _trente-cinq et trente-huit_." She handed Francois the keys
and her sense of humour disappeared in a smile which told poppa that he
might, if he liked, consider her a fine woman. He, wishing doubtless to
bask in it to the fullest extent, produced his book of tickets.
"I expect you've seen these before," he said, apparently for the
pleasure of continuing the conversation.
[Illustration: "I expect you've seen these before."]
As her eye fell upon them a look of startled cynicism suddenly replaced
the smile. Her cynicism was paradoxical, she was so large, and sound and
wholesome, and the more irritating on this account.
"You 'ave the coupons!" she exclaimed. "Ah-a-ah!" in a crescendo of
astonishment at our duplicity. "Then I 'ave made one mistake. Francois!
Those first floor rooms they are already taken. But on the third floor
are two good beautiful rooms. There is also the lift--you can use the
lift."
"I can't dispute with a lady," said poppa, "but that is singular. I
should prefer those first floor rooms which were not taken until I
mentioned the coupons."
"Sare!"
The lady's eye was unflinching, and poppa quailed. He looked ashamed, as
if he had been caught in telling a story. They made a picture, as he
stood there pulling his beard, of American chivalry and Gallic guile,
which was almost pathetic.
"Well," said he, "as it's necessary that Mrs. Wick should lie down as
soon as possible you might show us those third floor rooms."
Then he recovered his dignity and glanced at Madame more in sorrow than
in anger. "Certainly, sare," she said severely. "Will you use the lift?
For the lift there is no sharge."
"That," said the Senator, "is real liberal." In moments of emotion
poppa often dropped into an Americanism. "If it's a serious offer I
think we _will_ use the lift."
At a nod from Madame, Francois went away to seek the man belonging to
the lift, and after a time returned with him. The lady produced another
key, with which the man belonging to the lift unlocked the door of the
brass cage which guarded it.
"You must find strangers very dishonest, madam," said the Senator
courteously as we stepped inside, "to render such a precaution
necessary."
But before we arrived at the third floor we were convinced that it was
unnecessary. It was not an elevator that the most burglarious would have
cared to take away.
So many Americans surrounded the breakfast table next morning that we
might almost have imagined ourselves in Chicago. A small, young priest
with furtive brown eyes cowered at one of the side tables, and at
another a broad-shouldered, unsmiling lady, dressed in black, with brows
and a slight moustache to match, dispensed food to a sallow and
shrinking object of preternaturally serious aspect who seemed to be her
husband, and a little boy who kept an anxious eye on them both. They
were French, too, but all the people who sat up and down the long middle
table belonged to the United States of America. They were there in
groups and in families representing different localities and different
social positions--as momma said, you had only to look at their shoulder
seams; and each group or family received the advances of the next with
the polite tolerance, head a little on one side, which characterises us
when we don't know each other's business standing or church membership;
but the tide of conversation which ebbed and flowed had a flavour which
made the table a geographical unit. I say "flavour," because there was
certainly something, but I am now inclined to think with Mr. Page that
"accent" is rather too strong a word to describe it. At all events, the
gratification of hearing it after his temporary exile in Great Britain
almost brought tears to the Senator's eyes. There were only three vacant
places, and, as we took them, making the national circle complete, a
little smile wavered round the table. It was a proud, conscious smile;
it indicated that though we might not be on terms of intimacy we
recognised ourselves to be immensely and uniformly American, and
considerably the biggest fraction of the travelling public. As poppa
said, the prevailing feeling was also American. As he was tucking his
napkin into his waistcoat, and ordering our various breakfasts, the
gentleman who sat next to him listened--he could not help it--fidgetted,
and finally, with some embarrassment, spoke.
"I don't know, sir," he said, "whether you're aware of it--I presume
you're a stranger, like myself--but all they _allow_ for what they call
breakfast in this hotel is tea or coffee, rolls, and butter; everything
else is charged extra."
Poppa was touched. As he said to me afterward, who but an American
would have taken the trouble to tell a stranger a thing like that! Not
an Englishman, certainly--he would see you bankrupt first! He disguised
his own sophistication, and said he was very much obliged, and he almost
apologised for not being able to take advantage of the information, and
stick to coffee and rolls.
"But the fact is," he said in self-defence, "we may get back for lunch
and we may not."
"That's all right," the gentleman replied with distinct relief. "I
didn't mind the omelette or the sole, but when it came to fried chicken
and strawberries I just had to speak out. You going to make a long stay
in Paris?"
As they launched to conversation momma and I glanced at each other with
mutual congratulation. It was at last obvious that the Senator was going
to enjoy his European experiences; we had been a little doubtful about
it. Left to ourselves, we discussed our breakfast and the waiters, the
only French people we could see from where we sat, and expressed our
annoyance, which was great, at being offered tooth-picks. I was so
hungry that it was only when I asked for a third large roll that I
noticed momma regarding me with mild disapproval.
"I fear," she said with a little sigh, "that you are thinking very
little of what is past and gone, love."
"Momma," I replied, "don't spoil my breakfast." When momma can throw an
emotional chill over anything, I never knew her to refrain. "I _should_
like that _garçon_ to bring me some more bread," I continued.
Momma sighed even more deeply. "You may have part of mine," she replied,
breaking it with a gesture that said such callousness she could not
understand. Her manner for the next few minutes expressed distinctly
that she, at least, meant to do her duty by Arthur.
Presently from the other side of poppa came the words, "_Not_ Wick of
Chicago!"
"I guess I can't deny it," said poppa.
"Senator Wick?"
Poppa lowered his voice. "If it's all the same to you," he said, "not
for the present. Just plain Joshua P. Wick. I'm not what you call
travelling incognito, do you see, but, so far as the U.S. Senate is
concerned, I haven't got it with me."
"Well, sir, I won't mention it again. But all the same, if I may be
allowed to say so, I am pleased to meet you, sir--very pleased. I
suppose they wired you that Mike McConnell's got the Post Office."
Poppa held out his hand in an instant of speechless gratitude. "Sir," he
said, "they did not. Put it there. I said no wires and no letters, and
I've been sorry for it ever since. Momma," he continued, "daughter,
allow me to present to you Mr.?--Mr. Malt, who has heard by cablegram
that our friend Mr. McConnell is Postmaster-General of Chicago."
Momma was grateful, too, though she expressed it somewhat more
distantly. Momma has a great deal of manner with strangers; it sometimes
completely disguises her real feeling toward them. I was also grateful,
though I merely bowed, and kicked the Senator under the table. Nobody
would have guessed from our outward bearing the extent to which our
political fortunes, as a family, were mixed up with Mike McConnell's.
Mr. Malt immediately said that if there was anything else he could do
for us he was at our service.
"Well," said poppa, "I suppose there's a good deal of intrinsic interest
in this town--relics of Napoleon, the Bon Marché, and so on--and we've
got to see it. I must say," he added, turning to momma, "I feel
considerably more equal to it now."
"It will take you a good long week," said Mr. Malt earnestly, "to begin
to have an idea of it. You might spend two whole days in the Louvre
itself. Is your time limited?"
"I don't need to tell any American the market value of it," said poppa
smiling.
"Then you can't do better than go straight to the Louvre. I'd be pleased
to accompany you, only I've got to go round and see our Ambassador--I've
got a little business with him. I daresay you know that one of our
man-of-war ships is lying right down here in the Seine river. Well, the
captain is giving a reception to-morrow in honour of the Russian Admiral
who happens to be there, too. I've got ladies with me and I wrote for
four tickets. Did I get the four tickets--or two of them--or one? No,
sir, I got a letter in the third person singular saying it wasn't a
public entertainment! I wrote back to say I guessed it was an American
entertainment, and he could expect me, all the same. He hadn't any sort
of excuse--my name and business address were on my letter paper. Now I'm
just going round to see what a United States Ambassador's for, in this
connection."
Mr. Malt rose and the waiter withdrew his chair. "Thank you, _garçon_,"
said he. "I'm coming back again--do you understand? This is not my last
meal," and the waiter bowed as if that were a statement which had to be
acknowledged, but was of the least possible consequence to him
personally. "Well, Mr. Wick," continued Mr. Malt, brushing the crumbs
from his waistcoat, "I'll say good morning, and to your ladies also. I'm
very pleased to have met you."
"Well," said momma, as he disappeared, "if every American in Paris has
decided to go to that reception there won't be much room for the
Russians."
"I suppose he's a voter and a tax-payer, and he's got his feelings,"
replied poppa. The Senator would defend a voter and a tax-payer against
any imputation not actually criminal.
"I'm glad I'm not one of his lady-friends," momma continued. "I don't
think I _could_ make myself at home on that man-of-war under the
circumstances. But I daresay he'll drag them there with him. He seems to
be just that kind of a man."
"He's a very patriotic kind of a man," replied the Senator. "It's his
patriotism, don't you see, that's giving him all this trouble. It's been
outraged. Personally I consider Mr. Malt a very intelligent gentleman,
and if he'd given me an opening as big as the eye of a needle I'm the
camel that would have gone with him, Augusta."
This statement of the Senator's struck me as something to be acted upon.
If there was to be a constant possibility of his going off with any
chance American in regular communication with the United States, our
European tour would be a good deal less interesting than I had been led
to expect. While momma was getting ready for the Louvre, therefore, I
stepped down to the office and wired our itinerary to his partner in
Chicago. "Keep up daily communication by wire in detail," I telegraphed,
"forward copies all important letters care Peters." Peters was the
tourist agent who had undertaken to bless our comings and goings. I said
nothing whatever to poppa, but I felt a glow of conscious triumph when I
thought of Mr. Malt.
We stood and realised Paris on the pavement while the fiacre turned in
from the road and drew up for us. I had every intention of being
fascinated and so had momma. We had both heard often and often that good
Americans when they die go to Paris, and that prepares one for a good
deal in this life. We were so anxious to be pleased that we fastened
with one accord upon the florist's shop under the hotel and said that it
was uniquely charming, though we both knew places in Broadway that it
couldn't be compared with. We looked amiably at the passers-by, and did
our best to detect in the manner of their faces that _esprit_ that makes
the dialogue of French novels so stimulating. What I usually thought I
saw when they looked at us was a leisurely indifferentism ornamented
with the suspicion of a sneer, and based upon a certain fundamental
acquisitiveness and ability to make a valuation that acknowledged the
desirability of our presence on business grounds, if not on personal
ones. It seemed to be a preconcerted public intention to make as much
noise in a given space as possible--we spoke of the cheerfulness of it,
stopping our ears. The cracking of the drivers' whips alone made a _feu
de joie_ that never ceased, and listening to it we knew that we ought to
feel happy and elated. The driver of our fiacre was fat and rubicund, he
wore a green coat, brass buttons, and a shiny top hat, and looked as if
he drank constantly. His jollity was perfunctory, I know, and covered a
grasping nature, but it was very well imitated, like everything in
Paris. As he whirled us, with a whip-report like a pistol-shot, into the
train of traffic in the middle of the street, we felt that we were
indeed in the city of appearances; and I put down in my mind, not having
my note-book, that Paris lives up to its photographs.
"We mustn't forget our serious object, dear," said momma, as we rolled
over the cobblestones--"our literary object. What shall we note this
morning? The broad streets, the elegant shops--_do_ look at that one!
Darling, is it absolutely necessary to go to the Louvre this morning?
There are some things we really need."
Momma addressed the Senator. I mentioned to her once that her way of
doing it was almost English in its demonstrativeness, and my other
parent told me privately he wished I hadn't--it aggravated it so.
"Augusta," said poppa, firmly, "I understand your feeling. I take a
human interest in those stores myself, which I do not expect this
picture gallery, etc., to inspire in me. But there the Louvre _is_, you
see, and it's got to be done. If we spent our whole time in this city in
mere pleasure and amusement, you would be the first to reproach
yourself, Augusta."
A few minutes later, when we had crossed the stone quadrangle and
mounted the stairs, and stood with our catalogue in the Salle Lacaze,
momma said that she wouldn't have missed it for anything. She sank
ecstatic upon a bench, and gave to every individual picture upon the
opposite wall the tribute of her intensest admiration. It was a pleasure
to see her enjoying herself so much; and poppa and I vainly tried to
keep up to her with the catalogue.
"Oh, why haven't we such things in Chicago!" she exclaimed, at which the
Senator checked her mildly.
"It's a mere question of time," said he. "It isn't reasonable to expect
Pre-Raphaelites in a new country. But give us three or four hundred
years, and we'll produce old masters which, if you ladies will excuse
the expression, will knock the spots out of the Middle Ages." Poppa is
such an optimist about Chicago.
The Senator went on in a strain of criticism of the pictures perfectly
moderate and kindly--nothing he wouldn't have said to the artists
themselves--until momma interrupted him. "Don't you think we might be
silent for a time, Alexander," she said.
Momma does call him Alexander sometimes. I didn't like to mention it
before, but it can't be concealed for ever. She says it's because Joshua
always costs her an effort, and every woman ought to have the right to
name her own husband.
"Let us offer to all this genius," she continued, indicating it, "the
tribute of sealing our lips."
The Senator will always oblige. "Mine are sealed, Augusta," he replied,
and so we sat in silence for the next ten minutes. But I could see by
his expression, in connection with the angle at which his hat was
tipped, that he was comparing the productions before him with the future
old masters of Chicago, and wishing it were possible to live long enough
to back Chicago.
"How they do sink in!" said momma at last. "How they sink into the
soul!"
"They do," replied the Senator. "I don't deny it. But I see by the
catalogue, counting Salles and Salons and all, there's seventeen rooms
full of them. If they're all to sink in, for my part I'll have to
enlarge the premises. And we've been here three-quarters of an hour
already, and life is short, Augusta."
So we moved on where the imperishable faces of Greuze and Velasquez and
Rembrandt smiled and frowned and wondered at us. As poppa said, it was
easy to see that these people had ideas, and were simply longing to
express them. "You feel sorry for them," he said, "just as you feel
sorry for an intelligent terrier. But these poor things can't even wag
their tails! Just let me know when you've had enough, Augusta."
Momma declared, with an accent of reproach, that she could never have
enough. I noticed, however, that we did not stay in the second room as
long as in the first one, and that our progress was steadily
accelerating. Presently the Senator asked us to sit down for a few
minutes while he should leave us.
"There's a picture here Bramley said I was to see without fail," he
explained. "It's called 'Mona Lisa,' and it's by an artist by the name
of Leonardo da Vinci. Bramley said it was a very fine painting, but I
don't remember just now whether he said it was what you might call a
picture for the family or not. I'll just go and ascertain," said the
Senator. "Judging from some of the specimens here, oil paintings in the
Middle Ages weren't intended to be chromo-lithographed."
In his absence momma and I discussed French cookery as far as we had
experienced it, in detail, with prodigious yawns for which we did not
even apologise. Poppa was gone a remarkably short time and came back
radiant. "I've found Mona," he exclaimed, "and--she's all right. Bramley
said it was the most remarkable portrait of a woman in the
world--looking at it, Bramley said, you become insensible to
everything--forget all about your past life and future hopes--and I
guess he's about right. Come and see it."
Momma arose without enthusiasm, and I thought I detected adverse
criticism in advance in her expression.
"Here she is," said the Senator presently. "Now look at that! Did you
ever see anything more intellectual and cynical, and contemptuous and
sweet, all in one! Lookin' at you as much as to say, 'Who are you,
anyhow, from way back in the State of Illinois--commercial traveller?
And what do you pretend to know?'"
Momma regarded the portrait for a moment in calm disapprobation. "I
daresay she was very clever," she said at length, "but if you wish to
know my opinion I _don't think much of her_. And before taking us to see
another female portrait, Mr. Wick, I should be obliged if you would take
the precaution of finding out _who she was_."
After which we drove quietly home.