“Thank you,” said Eusebe; but, as he turned to go, he made this reflection, which seemed to him sensible:—
“Garden of Plants: that is not a name. All gardens have plants; gardens give birth to plants, and a garden without plants would not be a garden. This soldier has evidently deceived me.”
Seeing an old man sitting on a bench enjoying the autumn sun, Eusebe, approaching him, took off his hat respectfully, and said,—
“I am a stranger, sir. Excuse me for troubling you, but I should like to know the name of this superb park.”
“I am glad, sir,” said the old man, kindly, “that I am able to tell you. The grounds that you see yonder are the garden of the king.”
“Of the emperor, you mean to say.”
“I mean to say what I say; and believe me, sir, it is not very becoming in a youth of your age to amuse himself at the expense of an old man like me. If it was for that you stopped, you would have done better to have kept on your way.”
Eusebe, not knowing what to reply, passed on, thinking himself really unfortunate. Since he left the Capelette, he had fallen from Charybdis into Scylla. The railroad agent had bullied him; the two travellers had laughed at him; the cabman had insulted him; the soldier had deceived him; and the old man had abused him. He began to think he would have to undergo a great deal in becoming acquainted with the world, and that the Parisians were not so highly civilized as they were generally supposed to be.
At this moment he was interrupted in his reflections by the cries of a woman. The people gathered around her, and he followed their example.