Twice I was kissed. I was afraid to look around to see who did it, because I knew I was in France. And you've got to give me the benefit of the doubt. I am hoping that both kisses came from pretty girls, though I do think that at least one of those girls should shave.
They examine my signature closely. They seem puzzled. I look. It is spelled right. Oh, I see! They expected "Charlot." And I write some more with "Charlot."
I am being bundled along to a funny little French train. It seems like a toy. But I am enjoying the difference. Everything is all changed. The new money, the new language, the new faces, the new architecture—it's a grown-up three-ring circus to me. The crowd gives a concerted cheer as the train pulls out and a few intrepid ones run alongside until distanced by steam and steel.
We go into the dining-room and here is a fresh surprise. The dinner is table d'hôte and three waiters are serving it. Everyone is served at once, and as one man is taking up the soup plates another is serving the next course. Here is French economy—economy that seems very sensible as they have perfected it. It seems so different from America, where waiters always seem to be falling over one another in dining-rooms. And wines with the meal! And the check; it did not resemble in size the national debt, as dinner checks usually do in America.
It has started to rain as we arrive in Paris, which adds to my state of excitement, and a reportorial avalanche falls upon me. I am about overcome. How did reporters know I was coming? The crowd outside the station is almost as large as the one in London.
I am still feeling the effects of my sea-sickness. I am not equal to speaking nor answering questions. We go to the Customs house and one journalist, finding us, suggests and points another way out. I am sick. I must disappoint the crowd, and I leap into a taxi and am driven to Claridge's Hotel.
"Out of the frying pan." Here are more reporters. And they speak nothing but French. The hubbub is awful. We talk to one another. We shout at one another. We talk slowly. We spell. We do everything to make Frenchmen understand English, and Englishmen understand French, but it is no use. One of them manages to ask me what I think of Paris.
I answer that I never saw so many Frenchmen in my life. I am looking forward eagerly to meeting Cami, the famous French cartoonist. We have been corresponding for several years, he sending me many drawings and I sending him still photos from pictures. We had built up quite a friendship and I have been looking forward to a meeting. I see him.
He is coming to me and we are both smiling broadly as we open our arms to each other.
"Cami!"