“Gather ye rosebuds while ye may, Old time is still a flying.” Thus the English poet. The German has said: “Pflücket die Rose, Eh' sie verblüht.” So there was one thing about which the two nations could agree. In countless cheap hotels in Berlin, as in London, the advice was being followed; and the wartime custom was no different in Paris — if you could accept the testimony of Napoleon Bonaparte, who had stood on the field of Eylau, observing the heaps of the slaughtered and remarking: “One night in Paris will remedy all that.”
Their happiness was long-enduring, and nothing in the outside world was permitted to disturb it. Not even loud banging noises, all over the city — one of them very close by. Lanny made a joke of it: “I hope that's not some morals police force after us.” The girl explained that those were anti-aircraft warnings, made by “maroons,” a kind of harmless bomb made of heavy paper wrapped with twine.
They lay still in the dark and listened. Presently came louder explosions, and some of them were near, too. “Anti-aircraft guns,” said Rosemary; she knew all the sounds. There came dull, heavy crashes, and she told him those were the bombs. “You don't have to worry unless it's a direct hit.”
“You surely can't worry if it is,” said Lanny. It was his first time under fire, and he wanted to take it in the English manner.
“About as much risk as in a thunderstorm,” said Rosemary. “The silly fools think they can frighten us by wrecking a house here and there and killing half a dozen harmless people in their beds.”
“I suppose those'll be planes?” asked the youth.
“From occupied Belgium. The Zepps have stopped coming entirely.”
The uproar grew louder, and presently there was a sharp cracking sound, and some of the glass in the window of their room fell onto the floor. That was getting sort of close! “A piece of shrapnel,” said Rosemary. “They don't have much force, because the air resistance stops them.”
“You know all about it!” smiled Lanny.
“Naturally; I help to fix people up. I'll have some new cases in the morning.”