ELEVEN IN FRANCE
Of all the passengers on the ship,--and there were perhaps six
hundred,--none interested the boys of The Happy Six like the young man
with one leg, who was going to London and Paris to astonish the people
by his tricks on a bicycle.
He had a wife, a very pleasant young woman, and Molly and Pauline liked
to talk with her. She told them she was in the habit of riding on her
own wheel, ahead of her husband, and throwing balls in the air for him
to fire at as he followed her; and he never failed to hit the balls.
“How wonderful!” cried Pauline.
“Yes,” returned the wife proudly; “but really not so wonderful as his
spinning his wheel down a toboggan slide. That is something that has
never yet been done by any man with two legs.”
“Oh, I should hope not,” said Molly; “it makes me shudder to think of
it.”
“Look, look,” cried Pauline; “see what he is doing now!”
Some one was playing the fiddle, and this extraordinary young man was
actually dancing in perfect time with one foot. He was laughing, too,
and seemed to enjoy the performance as much as any one else.
He was always in good spirits, so his wife said; and he assured the
boys that he did not mind the loss of his leg.
“There’s a philosopher for you,” said Mr. Rowe to Captain Bradstreet;
and when the dancing was over, they both went up and shook hands
cordially with the happy trick-cyclist.
And now the ship was almost at the end of her voyage. On the afternoon
of the Fourth of July the deck was crowded with passengers looking
pleased and expectant.
Presently across the sea to port was discerned a brown speck, and caps
went up with a shout.
“What are you all making such a noise for? Tell me quick!” cried Weezy,
running to the rail where Paul stood clapping his hands. By this time
Weezy had quite recovered and was again her healthy, inquisitive little
self.
“We’ve sighted Land’s End, Weezy Rowe, that’s what,” answered Paul,
with unwonted excitement.
“Oh! Oh! Are we coming to the end of the world, Paul?” Weezy’s eyes
sparkled like twin stars. “Are we truly, truly?”
“No, no, not to the end of the world, Miss Quizzy.” Paul smothered
a laugh. “We’re only coming to the end of England. There’s a long
stretch of world beyond that.”
“Oh, that’s too bad!” sighed Weezy.
And as they sailed closer to the shore, she added in a tone of
disapproval,--
“Land’s End is a weeny bit of a thing, isn’t it?”
“Not very large, Weezy. That sharp tongue is called Lizard’s Point.
People there are watching out and every time an ocean steamer comes in,
they telegraph about it to New York.”
“Why, Paul, I think that’s telling tales. Can’t a ship”--began Weezy;
but was interrupted by this glad cry from Kirke,--
“The pilot boat! Paul, the _pi-lot_ boat!”
A white-winged yacht was approaching. When it had come near enough, the
steamer stopped and took the pilot on board. The passengers smiled as
he mounted the rope-ladder at the vessel’s side, for now they knew they
should land in France the next morning. No vessel is ever allowed to
land without a pilot to show her the way.
“Come, Weezy, it’s time to dress for dinner,” said Molly a little
later, pausing in a promenade with Miss Evans. “We want to look our
very best to-night, Weezy, because the captain is going to give a grand
Fourth of July banquet.”
“I knew that; I heard it before you did, Molly Rowe.”
Weezy skipped away with her sister to their stateroom, and when the
bell rang they entered the dining-saloon, arrayed in their finest
apparel.
The saloon was a brilliant mass of color. American flags draped the
walls; the tables were decked in red, white, and blue; and every napkin
was a white tower with a small flag at its top.
“They’ve planted our ‘Old Glory’ everywhere,” said Paul. “Only see!”
It was really a grand banquet and lasted a long while. With the dessert
were passed little favors of colored tissue paper. Kirke’s favor proved
to be a blue Liberty cap which he put on with much glee. Paul and Weezy
had Marie Stewart bonnets; Pauline and Molly red military hats.
After-dinner speeches followed, the French people complimenting the
Americans, and the Americans complimenting the French. And then, having
returned thanks to the captain for his courtesy, the guests arose from
the feast.
In leaving the room Molly turned to speak with Miss Evans and observed
that she had exchanged her black serge travelling dress for one of
mourning silk, but still wore at her belt the large, conspicuous
reticule.
“A leather bag at a grand dinner! What strange taste!” she thought.
“And yet Miss Evans is certainly a lady.”
In the morning they landed at the port of Havre and passed through
the Custom House. There, to Weezy’s great indignation, their trunks
were opened and searched. When a dark, sour-looking officer handled
roughly her cherished Araminta, the little girl could no longer contain
herself, but in her anxiety exclaimed aloud,--
“Please, sir, lift my doll easy! Sometimes her eye falls out!”
He never answered, never even looked up, but went on holding the
unfortunate Araminta upside down in his left hand, while with his right
hand he fumbled about among the contents of the box.
Weezy considered his conduct extremely rude, and was very angry with
him, till her mother suggested that as he was a Frenchman he might not
have understood what she said.
After the luggage had been examined and chalked with a capital letter
D, our party drove to the Frascati, a large hotel, for breakfast.
After breakfast the boys walked off to the immense stone bath-house
across the court. A white-capped old woman sat at a desk in the broad
entrance hall, writing accounts in a ledger. The boys had French
money--francs and centimes--which they had received from the purser on
the ship in exchange for United States money.
Paul could speak a little French, and he bought the bath-tickets,
paying an extra sum for soap and towels.
“Well, I hope that’s mean enough!” said Kirke, when this was explained
to him. “Do they charge extra for the water, too?”
Then they followed a waiting-maid up-stairs into separate bath-rooms;
and again Kirke was astonished, for when he had entered his room, the
girl turned the key and locked him in. To the American boy, unused to
foreign customs, this seemed a strange proceeding.
When he had made his toilet, rung a bell, and been released from
solitary confinement, he ran out to seek Paul in the waiting-room.
“What do you think, Paul Bradstreet! That girl locked me into my room!”
“Well, she locked me into mine, too; that’s a way they have in this
country.”
Kirke related his experience to the girls that afternoon in a very
graphic way, as the quartette strolled together on the heights.
Pauline laughed, and Molly demurely remarked that she had never heard
before of a country where people were shut up who hadn’t been naughty!
“Be careful, Molly, or President Faure may hear you,” said Paul, in
pretended alarm. “I suppose he is in that square, cream-colored house
this minute; it’s where he lives in the summer.”
“How do you know that?” asked Pauline. “Who said so?”
“The head clerk at the hotel described it to me.”
“_Head clerk_, indeed! You mean _concierge_,” corrected his sister.
“One would think you had never been abroad before. You must use the
French names.”
“A queer country,” said Molly. “No matter how gray-headed a man is,
they call him _garçon_; and _garçon_ means boy.”
It had been Miss Evans’s original plan to proceed directly from Havre
to Paris; but on being urged by her Silver Gate friends to visit with
them various points of interest along the road, she could not resist
the invitation.
“I came to France mainly on account of an important errand in Paris,”
she said to Mrs. Rowe. “I’ve been wanting to tell you about it, only
I can’t mention the subject without crying. But now I find that the
people I wish to see will be out of the city for another week or two.
And so,” she continued, drying her eyes, “I believe I may allow myself
this pleasant holiday with you.”
Accordingly she wired her uncle that he need not expect her at
present, as she was to join the Silver Gate party next morning for a
carriage-drive through picturesque Normandy.