side of the ball. Dan was to mark while the doctor and I played. At the end of an hour neither of us had made a count, and so Dan was tired of keeping tally with nothing to tally, and we were heated and angry and disgusted. We paid the heavy bill-- about six cents--and said we would call around some time when we had a week to spend, and finish the game. We adjourned to one of those pretty cafés and took supper and tested the wines of the country, as we had been instructed to do, and found them harm- less and unexciting. They might have been ex- citing, however, if we had chosen to drink a suffi- ciency of them. To close our first day in Paris cheerfully and pleasantly, we now sought our grand room in the Grand Hotel du Louvre and climbed into our sump- tuous bed, to read and smoke--but alas! It was pitiful, In a whole city-full, Gas we had none.
No gas to read by--nothing but dismal candles. It was a shame. We tried to map out excursions for the morrow; we puzzled over French "Guides to Paris"; we talked disjointedly, in a vain endeavor to make head or tail of the wild chaos of the day's sights and experiences; we subsided to indolent smoking; we gaped and yawned, and stretched-- then feebly wondered if we were really and truly in renowned Paris, and drifted drowsily away into that vast mysterious void which men call sleep. -110- |