"Yes," he said; "I once saw a fish caught."
"And when was that?" I asked.
"That," said the aged man, "was in 1853."
I strolled down to the lower quay, smoking. As I passed the row of anglers I looked at them closely. They all were asleep.
Just above was anchored one of those floating lavoirs in which the washerwomen of Paris congregate to beat your linen into rags with flat wooden paddles, and soap the rags snow-white at the cost of a few pennies.
The soapsuds from the washing floated off among the lines of the slumbering fishermen. Perhaps that was one reason why the fish were absent from the scenery. On the other hand, however, I was given to understand that a large sewer emptied into the river near the Pont des Arts, and that the fishing was best in such choice spots. Still something certainly was wrong somewhere, for either the sewer and the soapsuds had killed the fish, or they had all migrated up the sewer on an inland and subterranean picnic to meet the elite among the rats of Paris, and spend the balance of the day.
The river was alive with little white saucy steamboats, rushing up and down the Seine with the speed of torpedo craft. There was a boat-landing within a few paces of where I stood, so, when a boat came along and stopped to discharge a few passengers, I stepped aboard, bound for almost anywhere, and not over-anxious to get there too quickly. Neither did I care to learn my own destination, and when the ticket agent in naval uniform came along to inquire where I might be going, I told him to sell me a pink ticket because it looked pretty. As all Frenchmen believe that all Americans are a little mad, my request, far from surprising the ticket agent, simply confirmed his national theory; and he gave me my ticket very kindly, with an air of protection such as one involuntarily assumes toward children and invalids.
"You are going to Saint Cloud," he said. "I'll tell you when to get off the boat."
"Thank you," said I.
"You ought to be going the other way," he added.