He went on talking, and as he talked he half seated himself beside Jarrett, who was still holding him by the collar lest he should fall out of the carriage.
“But, Monsieur,” I exclaimed, “what do you mean? What is all this about a whale?”
“Ah, Madame,” he replied, “it is admirable, enormous. It is in the harbour basin, and there are men employed day and night to break the ice all round it.”
He broke off suddenly, and standing on the carriage step he clutched the driver.
“Stop! Stop!” he called out. “Hi! Hi! Henry, come here! Here’s Madame; here she is!”
The carriage drew up, and without any further ceremony he jumped down and pushed into my landau a little man, square all over, who was wearing a fur cap pulled down over his eyes, and an enormous diamond in his cravat. He was the strangest type of the old-fashioned Yankee. He did not speak a word of French, but he took his seat calmly by Jarrett, whilst the reporter remained half sitting and half hanging on to the vehicle. There had been three of us when we started from the station, and we were five when we reached the Hotel Vendome. There were a great many people awaiting my arrival, and I was quite ashamed of my new companion. He talked in a loud voice, laughed, coughed, spat, addressed every one, and gave every one invitations. All the people seemed to be delighted. A little girl threw her arms round her father’s neck, exclaiming, “Oh yes, papa; do please let us go!”
“Well, but we must ask Madame,” he replied, and he came up to me in the most polite and courteous manner. “Will you kindly allow us to join your party when you go to see the whale to-morrow?” he asked.
“But, Monsieur,” I answered, delighted to have to do with a gentleman once more, “I have no idea what all this means. For the last quarter of an hour this reporter and that extraordinary man have been talking about a whale. They declare authoritatively that I must go and pay it a visit, and I know absolutely nothing about it all. These two gentlemen took my carriage by storm; installed themselves in it without my permission, and, as you see, are giving invitations in my name to people I do not know, asking them to go with me to a place about which I know nothing, for the purpose of paying a visit to a whale which is to be introduced to me, and which is waiting impatiently to die in peace.”
The kindly disposed gentleman signed to his daughter to come with us, and, accompanied by them, and by Jarrett and Madame Guérard, I went up in a lift to the door of my suite of rooms. I found my apartments hung with valuable pictures and full of magnificent statues. I felt rather disturbed in my mind, for among these objects of art were two or three very rare and beautiful things, which I knew must have cost an exorbitant price. I was afraid lest any of them should be stolen, and I spoke of my fear to the proprietor of the hotel.
“Mr. X., to whom the knick-knacks belong,” he answered, “wished you to have them to look at as long as you are here, Mademoiselle; and when I expressed my anxiety about them to him, just as you have done to me, he merely remarked that ‘it was all the same to him.’ As to the pictures, they belong to two wealthy Bostonians.” There was among them a superb Millet, which I should very much have liked to own.