Bee's tone was so flattering that Jimmie forgot clothes and said:
"Well, you know at the Binda you can get corn on the cob and American griddle cakes—"
"Oh, but the rooms are so small and dark, and we could go there for luncheon to get those things," said his wife.
"Do let's go to the Hotel Vouillemont," I begged. "We won't see any Americans there, and it is so lovely and old and French, and so heavenly quiet."
"But then there is the new Élysée Palace," said Bee. "We haven't seen that."
"And they say it's finer than the Waldorf," said Mrs. Jimmie.
Jimmie and I looked at each other in comical despair.
"Let 'em have their own way, Jimmie," I whispered in his ear, "while we're in their country. They know that we are going to make 'em dodge Switzerland and go up in the Austrian Tyrol and perhaps even get them to Russia, so we'll be obliged to give them their head part of the way. Let's be handsome about it."
We went to the Élysée Palace, and we spent two weeks in Paris. Part of this time we were fashionable with Mrs. Jimmie and Bee, and part of the time they were Latin Quartery with us. We made them go to the Concert Rouge and to the Restaurant Foyot, and occasionally even to sit on the sidewalk at one of the little tables at Scossa's, where you have déjeuner au choix for one franc fifty, including wine, and which they couldn't help enjoying in spite of pretending to despise it and us, while occasionally we went with them to call on the grand and distinguished personages to whom they had letters. But it remained for the last days of our stay for us to have our experiences. The first came about in this wise.
I had brought a letter to Max Nordau from America, but I heard after I got to Paris that he was so fierce a woman hater, that I determined not to present it. I read it over every once in awhile, but failed to screw my courage to the sticking point, until one day I mentioned that I had this letter, and Jimmie to my surprise threw up both hands, exclaiming: