IN WHICH A MODEST MAN MAUNDERS
"In my opinion," said I, "a man who comes to see Paris in three months is a fool, and kin to that celebrated ass who circum-perambulated the globe in eighty days. See all, see nothing. A man might camp a lifetime in the Louvre and learn little about it before he left for Père Lachaise. Yet here comes the United States in a gigantic "mônome" to see the city in three weeks, when three years is too short a time in which to appreciate the Carnavalet Museum alone! I'm going home."
"Oh, papa!" said Alida.
"Yes, I am," I snapped. "I'd rather be tried and convicted in Oyster Bay on the charge of stealing my own pig than confess I had 'seen Paris' in three months."
We had driven out to the Trocadero that day, and were now comfortably seated in the tower of that somewhat shabby "palace," for the purpose of obtaining a bird's eye view of the "Rive Droite" or right bank of the Seine.
Elegant, modern, spotless, the Rive Droite spread out at our feet, silver-gray squares of Renaissance architecture inlaid with the delicate green of parks, circles, squares, and those endless double and quadruple lines of trees which make Paris slums more attractive than Fifth Avenue. Far as the eye could see stretched the exquisite monotony of the Rive Droite, discreetly and artistically broken by domes and spires of uncatalogued "monuments," in virgin territory, unknown and unsuspected to those spiritual vandals whose hordes raged through the boulevards, waving ten thousand blood-red Baedekers at the paralyzed Parisians.
"Well," said I, "now that we have 'seen' the Rive Droite, let's cast a bird's-eye glance over Europe and Asia and go back to the hotel for luncheon."
My sarcasm was lost on my daughters because they had moved out of earshot. Alida was looking through a telescope held for her by a friend of Captain de Barsac, an officer of artillery named Captain Vicômte Torchon de Cluny. He was all over scarlet and black and gold; when he walked his sabre made noises, and his ringing spurs reminded me of the sound of sleigh-bells in Oyster Bay.
My daughter Dulcima was observing the fortress of Mont-Valerien through a tiny pair of jewelled opera-glasses, held for her by Captain de Barsac. It was astonishing to see how tirelessly De Barsac held those opera-glasses, which must have weighed at least an ounce. But French officers are inured to hardships and fatigue.
"Is that a fortress?" asked Dulcima ironically. "I see nothing but some low stone houses."