Jennie did not understand the map very well; but she seemed satisfied with Rollo's assurances that he himself could find all the places.
"It is all right, you may depend," said Rollo. "I can find the way, you may be sure."
So he put up the map, bade his mother good by, and then he and Jennie sallied forth.
The hotel was situated on the corner of the Place Vendome and the street which led toward the garden; and as soon as the children had turned this corner, after coming out from under the archway of the hotel, they saw at some distance before them, at the end of the street, the iron palisade, and the green wall of trees above it, which formed the boundary of the garden.
"There it is!" exclaimed Rollo. "There is the garden and the gateway! and it is not very far!"
The children walked along upon the sidewalk hand in hand, looking sometimes at the elegant carriages which rolled by them from time to time in the street, and sometimes at the groups of ladies and children that passed them on the sidewalk. At the first corner that they came to, Rollo's attention was attracted by the sight of a man who had a box on the edge of the sidewalk, with a little projection on the top of it shaped like a man's foot. Rollo wondered what it was for. Just before he reached the place, however, he saw a gentleman, who then happened to come along, stop before the box and put his foot on the projection. Immediately the man took out some brushes and some blacking from the inside of the box, which was open on the side where the man was standing, and began to brush the gentleman's boot.
"Now, how convenient that is!" said Rollo. "If you get your shoes or your boots muddy or dusty, you can stop and have them brushed."
So saying, he looked down at his own boots, almost in hopes that he should find that they needed brushing, in order that he might try the experiment; but they looked very clean and bright, and there seemed to be no excuse for having them brushed again.
Besides, Jennie was pulling him by the hand, to hasten him along. She said at the same time, in an undertone,—
"Look, Rollo, look! See! there is a blind lady walking along before us!"