There were uniforms of other nationalities, too: of the British, the brown and tasseled caps of the Belgians, the gray and peaked caps of the Italians—and the khaki of Americans. There was a boy with an arm-band bearing the letters M P, with which he was to become very familiar—the everywhere present and remarkably efficient military police of the American Army....
Presently he was in the dark street. The darkness came as a surprise to him until he recalled that Paris nights slept under the constant threat of German Gothas. The street lights—casting a dim-blue glow—were shaded above so that no light might rise to tell hostile raiders that a great city lay here.... Strain his eyes as he would, he could not see Paris, only a vague hint of buildings that might be palaces or warehouses, for all that he could see.... He looked for a taxicab.
Then it occurred to him that when he found a conveyance he had scant language with which to direct the chauffeur. He was going to the University Union, once the Palais Royal Hôtel, now taken over by American universities and colleges as both club and hotel for American university men in the army.... A tiny taxicab rattled up to the curb—all Paris taxicabs rattle in this way—and he approached it with some embarrassment.
“University Union,” he said to the chauffeur.
“Comment?”
“U-ni-versity Union,” said Kendall, speaking very slowly and distinctly.
“Comment?” repeated the chauffeur, waggling his head.
Out of the crowd stepped a Frenchman, smiling. “What is it monsieur desires? May I be of assistance to monsieur?”
“I want to go to the University Union, and I don’t know how to tell this man.”
“The University Union? I do not know it. Is it that it is an hotel, monsieur? Do you know its location?”