“What do you eat as soon as you wake in the morning, madame?” he inquired.
I was about to reply to him as I had done to the first one, but Jarrett, who had had difficulty in appeasing the anger of the crouching man, answered quickly for me: “Oatmeal.” I did not know what that dish was, but the ferocious reporter continued his questions:
“And what do you eat during the day?”
“Mussels.”
He wrote down phlegmatically: “Mussels through the day.” I moved toward the door and a reporter in a tailor-made skirt, with her hair cut short, asked me in a clear, sweet voice: “Are you a Jewcatholicprotestantmahometanbuddhistatheistzoroastertheistordeist?” I stood still, rooted to the spot in bewilderment. She had said all that in a breath, accenting the syllables haphazard, and making of the whole one word, so wildly incoherent that my impression was it was not safe to remain near this strange, gentle person. I must have looked uneasy, and as my eyes fell on an elderly lady who was talking gayly to a little group of people she came to my rescue, saying in very good French: “This young lady is asking you, madame, whether you are of the Jewish religion or whether you are a Catholic, a Protestant, a Mahometan, a Buddhist, an atheist, a Zoroaster, a theist, or a deist?”
I sank down on a couch. “Oh, heavens!” I exclaimed, “will it be like this in all the cities I visit?”
“Oh, no,” answered Jarrett, placidly, “your interviews will be wired throughout America.”
“What about the mussels?” I thought to myself, and then in an absent-minded way I answered, “I am a Catholic, mademoiselle.”
“A Roman Catholic, or do you belong to the Orthodox church?” she asked.
I jumped up from my seat, for she bored me beyond endurance, and a very young man then approached timidly.