On the morning of the Fourth of July we had been diving in and out the side streets of the Rue Bonaparte and the Boulevard Saint-Germain. At Scrappie's meal time, we came to a bench in the Square in front of Saint-Sulpice. It wasn't a bit like a holiday. It was sultry and looked like rain. We were wondering whether we had better not hurry back to the pension for fear of getting the baby wet. Just then people began to stop and look up. A huge balloon was above us. And it carried the American flag.
"You can't beat it," said my husband. "And we are Americans. Ergo, you can't beat us!"
Did the sight of the flag do the trick? Anyway, it was our Japanese "last quarter of an hour." We had come down through the Rue Férou. We went back for the twentieth time in twenty days through the Rue Servandoni. Grey houses, topped with beehive chimneys, leaned amicably against each other and broke the sky line as well as the municipal réglement (made long after they were) concerning the distance between houses on opposite sides of streets. Our hearts nearly stopped beating when we reached Number 21. There was the magic sign (it had not been there yesterday): Appartement à Louer. We stopped short in the middle of the street. The side-walks are not wide enough to walk on, much less wheel a baby-carriage along. The grocer on the ground floor saw us take the bait. Out he came. Did Monsieur and Madame care to see the appartement? If so, he was concierge as well as grocer. He would show us the place. We drew the new baby-carriage into the dark vestibule and went up one easy flight of oak balustraded stairs. The grocer pulled a red-braided bell rope.
A man in shirt-sleeves opened the door. We stepped into a tiny dining-room where the gas was lit although it was noon. The wall-paper was yellow, and had sprawling brown figures like beetles. A dark passage led into an immense room with a generous fireplace. Two windows opened on the Rue Servandoni. It was a paper-hanger's shop with ladders, brushes, buckets, rolls and rolls of paper and barrels of flour-paste around. But the fellow in shirt-sleeves assured us that when his fittings were out, we would realize what a handsome room it was. "The dining-room is dark," he admitted, "but you can't match this room for light and size in any two-room apartment in the Quarter. I know them all. I am leaving because I have found a ground floor shop. I'll put new paper on here very cheap."
The locataire assumed that we would take it. So did the grocer-concierge. Without our asking, Monsieur Sempé told us that the rent would be one hundred and fifty francs a quarter. We did not have to make a troublesome lease, just a little agreement involving three months' notification on either side.
"Don't forget," said Sempé, "that this old house sits between two modern apartment buildings. The walls are warm. Your neighbors have steam heat."
"True," confirmed the paper-hanger. But he did not want us to think that we could be altogether vicariously heated. "Possibly you may not have noticed," he added, "the fireplace in the dining-room. It heats almost as well as this one. I'll sell you my grates. Boulets make the best fire."
The thrill of admiration I had for my husband's magnificent courage when he signed the paper, and paid out fifty of his last hundred francs "on account" is with me still.
"We are sure to be able to pay our rent," said he, as we went back to the pension. "We couldn't expect to get anything for less than ten dollars a month. The first installment of the fellowship money will come next week, and before then I shall certainly get something out of the Herald. It will have to be enough to buy our furniture."
It never rains but it pours. At the pension we found a letter from Mr. James Gordon Bennett, asking Herbert to call that afternoon at three o'clock at 104 Avenue des Champs-Elysées. It was in a blue envelope with a little owl embossed on the flap, and was signed "J. G. BENNETT" in blue pencil almost the color of the paper. How often we were to see this envelope and this signature, and what luck it was going to bring us! We thought the occasion demanded a celebration. I did Scrappie and myself up in our best, and we set forth for the Champs-Elysées in an open fiacre—our first ride since we came from the Boulevard Diderot to the Rue Madame. We waited in the carriage while Herbert went in to collect his money for the Adana massacre stories.