"Very well," thought I to myself, "this aquarium is exactly the place I expect to avoid in future—" And I cheerfully joined my daughters as though they and their escorts had long missed me.
Now, of course, they all expressed an enthusiastic desire to visit every tank and hear me explain the nature of their contents; but it was too late.
"No," said I, "it is damp enough here to float all the fishes in the Seine. And besides, as we are to 'see' the Rive Droite, we should hasten, so that we may have at least half an hour to devote to the remainder of France."
From the bowels of the earth we emerged into the sunshine, to partake of an exceedingly modest luncheon in the Trocadero restaurant, under the great waterfall.
Across the river a regiment of red-legged infantry marched, drums and bugles sounding.
"All that territory over there," said De Barsac, "is given up to barracks. It is an entire quarter of the city, occupied almost exclusively by the military. There the streets run between miles of monotonous barracks, through miles of arid parade grounds, where all day long the piou-pious drill in the dust; where the cavalry exercise; where the field-artillery go clanking along the dreary streets toward their own exercise ground beyond the Usine de Gaz. All day long that quarter of the city echoes with drums beating and trumpets sounding, and the trample of passing cavalry, and the clank and rattle of cannon. Truly, in the midst of peace we prepare for—something else—we French."
"It is strange," said I, "that you have time to be the greatest sculptors, architects, and painters in the world."
"In France, monsieur, we never lack time. It is only in America that you corner time and dispense it at a profit."
"Time," said I, "is at once our most valuable and valueless commodity. Our millionaires seldom have sufficient time to avoid indigestion. Yet, although time is apparently so precious, there are among us men who spend it in reading the New York Herald editorials. I myself am often short of time, yet I take a Long Island newspaper and sometimes even read it."