Would you rather be a Colonel, with an eagle on your shoulder,
Or a private, with a chicken on your knee?
Ordinary vehicular traffic had almost entirely removed itself from the streets—probably from the instinct of self-preservation; for the few taxis which still survived carried never less than fifteen passengers, mostly on the roof. But huge military motor-trucks were ubiquitous. They were mainly British and American, but they bore a cargo completely representative of the Franco-Italo-Anglo-American entente, from the impromptu jazz-band of some thirty artistes perched upon the canvas roof, to the quartette of Australian soldiers and their lady friends sitting astride the radiator, bob-sleigh fashion, and wearing one another’s hats. It is needless to add that small French boys adhered like flies to all the less accessible parts of the vehicle.
As evening approached, and the electric arc-lamps awoke sizzling and sputtering from their enforced sleep of many gloomy months, one question began to exercise the collective faculties of the celebrants:—
“Where shall we go to-night?”
In most cases the answer was simple enough. At moments of intense mental exaltation the Anglo-Saxon in Paris turns to the Folies Bergères as simply and spontaneously as your true Moslem turns towards Mecca at the call of the muezzin. But Boone and Frances cared for none of these things.
“Listen, dear,” said Boone. “Let’s go to some place that’s quiet, where we can get by ourselves!”
“That will be too lovely,” agreed the other optimist, as she struggled panting through the press. “But where, darling?”
“Well, anyway, some place where we won’t meet any one we know,” said Boone, with the first instinct of the newly affianced; and Frances concurred.