A Voyage of Consolation Part 9

CHAPTER VII.

It was after dinner and we were sitting in the little courtyard of the hotel in the dark without our hats--that is, momma and I; the Senator was seldom altogether without his hat. I think he would have felt it to be a little indecent. The courtyard was paved, and there were flowers on the stand in the middle of it, natural palms and artificial begonias mixed with the most annoying cleverness, and little tables for coffee cups or gla.s.ses were scattered about. Outside beyond the hotel vestibule one could see and hear Paris rolling by in the gaslight. It was the only place in the hotel that did not smell of furniture, so we frequented it.

So did Mr. Malt and Mrs. Malt, and Emmeline Malt, and Miss Callis. That was chiefly how we made the acquaintance of the Malt party. You can't very well sit out in the dark in a foreign capital with a family from your own State and not get to know them. Besides poppa never could overcome his feeling of indebtedness to Mr. Malt. They were taking Emmeline abroad for her health. She was the popular thirteen-year-old only child of American families, and she certainly was thin. I remember being pleased, sometimes, considering her in her typical capacity, that I once had a little brother, though he died before I was born.

The two gentlemen were smoking; we could see nothing but the ends of their cigars glowing in their immediate vicinity. Momma was saying that the situation was very romantic, and Mr. Malt had a.s.sured her that it was nothing to what we would experience in Italy. "That's where you _get_ romance," said Mr. Malt, and his cigar end dropped like a falling star as he removed the ash. "Italy's been romantic ever since B.C. All through the time the rest of the world was inventing Magna Chartas and Doomsday Books, and Parliaments, and printing presses, and steam engines, Italy's gone right on turning out romance. Result is, a better quality of that article to be had in Italy to-day than anywhere else.

Further result, twenty million pounds spent there annually by tourists from all parts of the civilised world. Romance, like anything else, can be made to pay."

"Are we likely to find the beds----" began Mrs. Malt plaintively.

"Oh dear yes, Mrs. Malt!" interrupted momma, who thought everything entomological extremely indelicate. "Perfectly. You have only to go to the hotels the guide-books recommend, and everything will be quite _propre_."

"Well," said Emmeline, "they may be _propre_ in Italy, but they're not _propre_ in Paris. We had to speak to the housemaid yesterday morning, didn't we, mother? Don't you remember the back of my neck?"

"We all suffered!" declared Mrs. Malt.

"And I _showed_ one to her, mother, and all she would say was, '_Jamais ici, mademoiselle, ici, jamais!_' And there it _was_ you know."

"Emmeline," said her father, "isn't it about time for you to want to go to bed?"

"Not by about three hours. I'm going to get up a little music first. Do you play, Mis' Wick?"

Momma said she didn't, and Miss Malt disappeared in search of other performers. "Don't you go asking strangers to play, Emmeline," her mother called after her. "They'll think it forward of you."

"When Emmeline leaves us," said her father, "I always have a kind of abandoned feeling, like a top that's got to the end of its spin."

There was silence for a moment, and then the Senator said he thought he could understand that.

"Well," continued Mr. Malt, "you've had three whole days now. I presume you're beginning to know your way around."

"I think we may say we've made pretty good use of our time," responded the Senator. "This morning we had a look in at the Luxembourg picture gallery, and the Madeleine, and Napoleon's Tomb, and the site of the Bastile. This afternoon we took a run down to Notre Dame Cathedral.

That's a very fine building, sir."

"You saw the Morgue, of course, when you were in that direction,"

remarked Mr. Malt.

"Why no," poppa confessed, "we haven't taken much of liking for live Frenchmen, up to the present, and I don't suppose dead ones would be any more attractive."

"Oh, there's nothing unpleasant," said Mrs. Malt, "nothing that you can _notice_."

"Nothing at all," said Mr. Malt. "They refrigerate them, you know. We send our beef to England by the same process----"

"There are people," the Senator interrupted, "who never can see anything amusing in a corpse."

"They don't let you in as a matter of course," Mr. Malt went on. "You have to pretend that you're looking for a relation."

"We had to mention Uncle Sammy," said Mrs. Malt.

"An uncle of Mis' Malt's who went to California in '49 and was never heard of afterward," Mr. Malt explained. "First use he's ever been to his family. Well, there they were, seven of 'em, lying there looking at you yesterday. All in good condition. I was told they have a place downstairs for the older ones."

"Alexander," said momma faintly, "I think I _should_ like a little brandy in my coffee. Were there--were there any ladies among them, Mr.

Malt?"

"Three," Mr. Malt responded briskly, "and one of them had her hair----"

"Then _please_ don't tell us about them," momma exclaimed, and the silence that ensued was one of slight indignation on the part of the Malt family.

"You been seeing the town at all, evenings?" Mr. Malt inquired of the Senator.

"I can't say I have. We've been seeing so much of it in the daytime, we haven't felt able to enjoy anything at night except our beds," poppa returned with his accustomed candour.

"Just so. All the same there's a good deal going on in Paris after supper."

"So I've always been told," said the Senator, lighting another cigar.

"They've got what you might call characteristic shows here. You see a lot of life."

"Can you take your ladies?" asked the Senator.

"Well of course you _can_, but I don't believe they would find it interesting."

"Too much life," said the Senator. "I guess that settles it for me too.

I daresay I'm lacking in originality and enterprise, but I generally ask myself about an entertainment, 'Are Mrs. and Miss Wick likely to enjoy it?' If so, well and good. If not, I don't as a rule take it in."

"He's a great comfort that way," remarked momma to Mrs. Malt.

"Oh, I don't _frequent_ them myself," said Mr. Malt defensively.

"Talking of improprieties," remarked Miss Callis, "have you seen the New Salon?"

There was something very unexpected about Miss Callis; momma complained of it. Her remarks were never polished by reflection. She called herself a child of nature, but she really resided in Brooklyn.

The Senator said we had not.

"Then don't you go, Mr. Wick. There's a picture there----"

"We never look at such pictures, Miss Callis," momma interrupted.

"It's _so_ French," said Miss Callis.

Momma drew her shawl round her preparatory to withdrawing, but it was too late.

"Too French for words," continued Miss Callis. "The poet Lamartine, with a note-book and pencil in his hand, seated in a triumphal chariot, drawn through the clouds by beautiful Muses."

"Oh," said momma, in a relieved voice, "there's nothing so dreadfully French about that."

"You should have seen it," said Miss Callis. "It was simply immoral.