"Madame speak ze Eengleesh fine," he said.
Looking down from an immeasurable height, the little madam condescended to remark that their servant was looking for their baggage.
"Ah!" I responded. "Then we are not permitted to leave our trunks."
"I am sure I don't know," she replied, looking so greatly bored, not to say exhausted, that I did not think it best to press the matter. "Our servant is attending to it," she repeated.
Her husband's face fairly glowed with satisfaction while this side conversation was being carried on. Evidently he believed the whole French baggage system to have been elucidated for my benefit. I thanked him heartily, as we exchanged cordial adieus. Even the fussy little woman gathered, for the moment, sufficient life to attempt to bow; which, alas! never got beyond a stare. The commissionaire seized upon a blue-bloused porter, and gave me to him with the check, the carte, and a few sharply-spoken directions. Clinging to that blue sleeve, I was borne through the swaying, surging mass of humanity, into the baggage-room—how, I never knew. Our trunks were identified, lifted, not thrown, by my porter upon a hand-truck, which dragged for itself and us an opening in the crowd. Once out upon the platform, the porter pushed doggedly on into the darkness, though I had left Mrs. K. and the carriage in the square at one side. I expostulated. He held persistently to his course. I gave one thought to poor Mrs. K., resigned to what fate I knew not, and then, woman-like, followed my trunks.
It was all explained, when, dimly outlined in the darkness before the station, we espied a sea of shiny hats and shadowy cabs; and when, after long shouting of the number of our own, by the porter and everybody else, it finally crawled up to the steps where we were standing, Mrs. K.'s anxious face looking out of the window.
"I began to think you were lost," she said. "You can fancy my feelings when the driver gathered up the reins and drove out of that square."
We made a thank-offering upon the palm of every grimy hand, suddenly outstretched; then the driver paused, whip in the air, for the address of our destination.
"Magasin au Printemps, Boulevard Haussman." He stared, as everybody had, and did, along the way. If they only wouldn't! We repeated it. He conferred, in a low tone, with the man on the next box, who got down from his place, and came around to our window to look at us. One or two lounging porters joined him. The Magasin au Printemps is a large dry and fancy goods establishment, which had been closed, of course, for hours, since it was now nearly midnight. It was as though we had reached New York late at night, and insisted upon being driven to Stewart's. The little crowd stared at us solemnly, in a kind of pitiful curiosity, I fancied. I think, by this time, our countenances may have expressed incipient idiocy. We attempted to explain that Miss H.'s apartments were over the Magasin, and the driver mounted to his seat, though, I am obliged to confess, with an ominous shake of his head.
As we rolled out into the wide boulevards our spirits rose. The sidewalks were crowded with promenaders, the streets with carriages. The light of a glorious day seemed to have burst upon our dazzled eyes. Paris, gay, beautiful Paris, which never sleeps, was out, disporting herself.