"Oui, monsieur."
He stopped like a canvas canoe that has struck a snag.
"C'est impossible," he announced, closing his book of blanks with a thump. "We cannot of course sell you a ticket."
I plunged at once into an explanation. I advanced the information that the contract labor law was not framed to shut out American citizens. I protested that I had already toiled a year under the contract in question, and for my sins must return to toil another. I made no headway whatever.
"It is the law of the United States," he snapped. "Voilà! C'est assez."
Luckily I had a day to spare. By dint of appealing to every maritime authority in the city I convinced the agent at last of his error. But it was none too soon. With my bundle and ticket in one hand and a sort of meal-sack tag to tie in my lapel--if I so chose--in the other, I tumbled into the night train for Paris just as its wheels began to turn. Emigrant tickets are not good in France by day. There was one other tagged passenger in the compartment, a heavy-mannered young peasant likewise wearing a boína. Being thus drawn together we fell gradually; into conversation. He was at first exceeding chary, with the two-fold canniness of the Basque and of the untraveled rustic whose native village has warned him for weeks to beware wily strangers. When I displayed my ticket, however, he lost at once his suspicion and, drawing out his own, proposed that we make the journey as partners. He was bound for Idaho. We did not, however, exchange ideas with partner-like ease, for though he had passed his twenty-five years in the province of Guipuzcoa he spoke little Spanish.
Near midnight a few passengers alighted and I fell into a cramped and restless sort of dog-sleep from which I awoke as we screamed into Versailles. When we descended at the Montparnasse station we were joined by three more Basques from another compartment. They, too, wore boínas and, like my companion, in lieu of coats, smocks reaching almost to the knees. They were from near Pamplona and had tickets from Bordeaux to Fresno, California, having taken this route to avoid the difficulties of leaving Spain by sea.
The Paris agent of the "American Line" did not meet us in silk hat and with open arms; but when we had shivered about the station something over an hour an unshaven Italian of forty, with lettered cap and a remarkable assortment of unlearned tongues picked us up and bore us away by omnibus to his "Cucina Italiana" in the Passage Moulin. Breakfast over, I invited my fellow-emigrants to view Paris under my leadership. They accepted, after long consultation, and we marched away along the Rue de Lyon to the site of the Bastille, then on into the roar of the city, the Spaniards so helplessly overwhelmed by the surrounding sights and sounds that I was called upon times without number to save them being run down. At length we crossed to the island and, the morgue being closed, entered Notre Dame. I had hitherto credited Catholic churches with being the most democratic of institutions. Hardly were we inside, however, when a priest steamed down upon my companions.
"Sortez de suite!" he commanded. "Get out! How dare you enter the sacred cathedral in blouses!"
The Basques stared at him open-mouthed, now and then nervously wiping their hands on the offending smocks. I passed on and they followed, pausing where I paused, to gape at whatever I looked upon. The priest danced shouting about them. They smiled at him gratefully, as if they fancied he were explaining to them the wonders of the edifice. His commands grew vociferous.