“How often does the Ferris Wheel go?”
“Is there any place in Paris where one can get ice-cream soda?”
These are some of the questions that they ask you. Some go to the Opera, sitting invariably in the best seats to the amazement of the French people. Yesterday I stopped at the box-office to buy some tickets. A boy standing just inside the door spoke to me.
“I beg your pardon, were you going to buy a seat for this afternoon?”
“No,” I said; “for Saturday.”
“I have an extra ticket. I’d be glad to have you use it.”
He went on to tell me that he was taking the six o’clock train, that he had bought tickets for himself and a friend for the matinee as a last pleasure, but that his friend had failed him. I hesitated, uncertain. “What’s the opera?” I asked, just because it was something to say.
“It’s La Bohème,” he said. I fell.
“I’m mighty glad,” he told me, “I was just about to go out and pick up a chicken on the street, when you came in.”
The opera was a dream of loveliness. I felt as if I must have done something very good indeed in some previous existence to be thus rewarded.