"British North," suggested the fat gentleman, with a smile that acknowledged Her Majesty. "First cousin once removed," and momma and I looked at one another intelligently. We had nothing against Canadians, except that they generally talk as if they had the whole of the St. Lawrence river and Niagara Falls in a perpetual lease from Providence—and we had never seen so many of them together before. The coach was three-quarters full of these foreigners, if the Misses Bingham had only known; but as poppa afterwards said, they were probably not foreign enough. It may have been imagination, but I immediately thought I saw a certain meekness, a habit of deference—I wanted to incite them all to treat the Guelphs as we did. Just then we stopped before the church of St. Augustin, and the guide came swinging along the outside of the coach hoarsely emitting facts. Everybody listened intently, and I noticed upon the Canadian countenances the same determination to be instructed that we always show ourselves. We all meant to get the maximum amount of information for the price, and I don't think any of us have forgotten that the site of St. Augustin is three-cornered and its dome resembles a tiara to this day. For a moment I was sorry for the Misses Bingham, who were absorbing nothing but dust; but, as momma said, they looked very well informed.
It must be admitted that we were a little shy with the guide—we let him bully us. As poppa said, he was certainly well up in his subject, but that was no reason why he should have treated us as if we had all come from St. Paul or Kansas City. There was a condescension about him that was not explained by the state of his linen, and a familiarity that I had always supposed confined exclusively to the British aristocracy among themselves. He had a red face and a blue eye, with which he looked down on us with scarcely concealed contempt, and he was marvellously agile, distributing his information as open street-car conductors collect fares.
"They seem extremely careful of their herbage in this town," remarked the serious man, and we noticed that it was so. Precautions were taken in wire that would have dissuaded a grasshopper from venturing on it. It grew very neatly inside, doubtless with a certain chic, but it had a look of being put on for the occasion that was essentially Parisian. Also the trees grew up out of iron plates, which was uncomfortable, though, no doubt, highly finished, and the flowers had a cachet about them which made one think of French bonnets. As we rolled into the Bois it became evident that the guide had something special to communicate. He raised his voice and coughed, in a manner which commanded instant attention.
"Ladies—and genelmen," he said—he always added the gentleman as if they were an after-thought—"you are mos' fortunate, mos' locky. Tout Paris—all the folks—are still driving their 'orse an' carriage 'ere. One week more—the style will be all gone—what you say—vamoosed? Every mother's son! An' Cook's excursion party won't see nothin' but ole cabs goin' along!"
"Can't we get away from them?" asked the serious person. It was humorously intended—certainly a liberty, and the guide was down on it in an instant.
"Get away from them? Not if they know you're here!"
At which the serious man looked still more serious, and sympathy for him sprang up in every heart.
We passed Longchamps at a steady trot, and the guide's statement that the races there were always held on Sunday was received with a silence that evidently disappointed him. It was plain that he had a withering rejoinder ready for sabbatarians, and he waited anxiously, balanced on one foot, for an expression of shocked opinion. It was after we had passed Mont Valerien, frowning on the horizon, that the man in the pink cotton shirt began to grow restive under so much instruction. He told the serious person that his name was Hinkson of Iowa, and the serious person was induced to reply that his was Pabbley of Simcoe, Ontario. It was insubordination—the guide was talking about the shelling from Mont Valerien at the time, with the most patriotic dislocations in his grammar.
"You understan', you see?" he concluded. "Now those two genelmen, they don' understan', and they don' see. An' when they get back to the United States they won' be able to tell their wives an' sweethearts anythin' about Mont Valerien! All right, genelmen—please yourselves. Mais you please remember I am just like William Shekspeare—I give no repétition!"
It was then that the serious man demonstrated that Britons, even the North American kind, never, never would be slaves. Placing his black silk hat carefully a little further back on his head, he leaned forward.