The Adventures of a Modest Man

It was nearly two o'clock, they had risen, and the gay little flowery table remained between them; the salad and duck were all gone. But the froth purred in their frail glasses, breaking musically in the candle-lit silence.

"Will you tell me your name before I go?"

"I will not." Her bright eyes and fair young face defied him.

"Very well; as soon as I learn it I shall be more generous – for I have something to tell you; and I'll do it, too!"

"Are you sure you will?" she asked, flushing up.

"Yes, I am sure."

"I may not care to hear what you have to say, Mr. Seabury."

They regarded one another intently, curiously. Presently her slender hand fell as by accident on the stem of her wine-glass; he lifted his glass: very, very slowly. She raised hers, looking at him over it.

"To – what I shall tell you – when I learn your name!" he said, deliberately.

Faint fire burned in her cheeks; her eyes fell, then were slowly raised to his; in silence, still looking at one another, they drank the toast.

"Dammit!" I said, impatiently, "is that all?"

"Yes," he said, "that will be about all. I'm going home to bed."

CHAPTER XX

DOWN THE SEINE

My daughter Alida and my daughter Dulcima had gone to drive with the United States Ambassador and his daughter that morning, leaving me at the Hôtel with instructions as to my behaviour in their absence, and injunctions not to let myself be run over by any cab, omnibus, automobile, or bicycle whatever.

Considerably impressed by their solicitude, I retired to the smoking-room, believing myself safe there from any form of vehicular peril. But the young man from Chicago sauntered in and took a seat close beside me, with benevolent intentions toward relieving my isolation.

I preferred any species of juggernaut to his rough riding over the English language, so I left him murkily enveloped in the fumes of his own cigar and sauntered out into the street.

The sky was cloudless; the air was purest balm. Through fresh clean streets I wandered under the cool shadows of flowering chestnuts, and presently found myself on the quay near the Pont des Arts, leaning over and looking at the river slipping past between its walls of granite.

In a solemn row below me sat some two dozen fishermen dozing over their sport. Their long white bamboo poles sagged, their red and white quill-floats bobbed serenely on the tide. Truly here was a company of those fabled Lotus-eaters, steeped in slumber; a dreamy, passionless band of brothers drowsing in the sunshine.

Looking east along the grey stone quays I could see hundreds and hundreds of others, slumbering over their fishpoles; looking west, the scenery was similar.

"The fishing must be good here," I observed to an aged man, leaning on the quay-wall beside me.

"Comme ça," he said.

I leaned there lazily, waiting to see the first fish caught. I am an angler myself, and understand patience; but when I had waited an hour by my watch I looked suspiciously at the aged man beside me. He was asleep, so I touched him.

He roused himself without resentment. "Have you," said I, sarcastically, "ever seen better fishing than this, in the Seine?"

"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.

"Why?" I asked.

"Because Charenton lies the other way," he replied, politely, and passed on to sell his tickets.

Now I had forgotten much concerning Paris in my twenty years of absence.

There was a pretty girl sitting on the bench beside me, with elbows resting on the railing behind. I glanced at her. She was smiling.

"Pardon, madame," said I, knowing enough to flatter her, though she had "mademoiselle" written all over her complexion of peaches and cream – "pardon, madame, but may I, a stranger, venture to address you for a word of information?"

"You may, monsieur," she said, with a smile which showed an edge of white teeth under her scarlet lips.

"Then, if you please, where is Charenton?"

"Up the river," she replied, smiling still.

"And what," said I, "is the principal feature of the town of Charenton?"

"The Lunatic Asylum, monsieur."

I thanked her and looked the other way.

Our boat was now flying past the Louvre. Above in the streets I could see cabs and carriages passing, and the heads and shoulders of people walking on the endless stone terraces. Below, along the river bank, our boat passed between an almost unbroken double line of dozing fishermen.

Now we shot out from the ranks of lavoirs and bathhouses, and darted on past the Champ de Mars; past the ugly sprawling Eiffel Tower, past the twin towers of the Trocadero, and out under the huge stone viaduct of the Point du Jour.

Here the banks of the river were green and inviting. Cafés, pretty suburban dance-houses, restaurants, and tiny hotels lined the shores. I read on the signs such names as "The Angler's Retreat," "At the Great Gudgeon," "The Fisherman's Paradise," and I saw sign-boards advertising fishing, and boats to let.

"I should think," said I, turning to my pretty neighbor, "that it would pay to remove these fisherman's signs to Charenton."

"Why?" she asked.