“What do you want?” demanded one who seemed to be the financial leader. “I already gave you a franc.”
“Un franc pour trois?” said the lady in horror.
“Yes, and that’s enough,” said the Canuck. “Aller!” he added in perfect Canadian.
“Je ne comprend pas,” said the lady.
“Go to the devil then!” said the Canadian in perfect Portuguese.
The lady went somewhere, but whether to the proper destination I do not know.
“I wonder how much they charge to get out,” wondered the Canadian.
Along about the middle of the show our own usher popped up before me and held out her right hand, at the same time exhibiting both teeth in an ingratiating smile. I shook the proffered hand. She withdrew her teeth.
“Non, non, non, non,” she said.
I asked her what she voulez-voued. She was coy.
“Do you want a tip?” I inquired in plain Michigan.
Both teeth reappeared. A dental curiosity drove me to hand her three francs. I had not underestimated.
In the second act a very nice-looking lady sang “A Broken Doll” in plain Thirty-ninth Street. The stage chorus tried to help her out on the second refrain, but, with all due modesty, I must say that it was the Canadians and I who earned the vociferous encore.
Lundi, 27 Août. Paris.
The first batch of laundry was back when I returned from the theater Saturday night. Collars were done up in a neat package, tied with baby-blue ribbon. They looked just as when I had sent them out except that there was a high, shiny polish over the soiled spots. As for handkerchiefs, let us follow the British communiqué style:
“Eleven of our handkerchiefs went over the Blanchisserie lines. Two came back. Nine are missing.”
Some practical joker suggested that I go out yesterday afternoon and watch a baseball game between a Canadian team and a club from the American Red Cross. St. Cloud was the battle ground. You pronounce St. Cloud exactly as it is not spelled.
A taxi man took us out there by way of Kansas City and El Paso, and during the forty minutes’ trip he was in high speed at least one minute. We bumped into a ceremony of awards. French soldiers to the number of two hundred were being given the Croix de Guerre.
The ceremony over, we crossed the race track and got on to the baseball field. There was an hour of badly needed practise, and then the two belligerents went at each other in a so-called ball game. It was stopped at the end of the eighth inning on account of rain, eight innings too late.
The rain, I am told, was long overdue, and we may expect gobs of it between now and then.
I am writing this early Monday morning, and early Monday morning is when we were supposed to start for the American camp. But there seems to be a difference of opinion over the meaning of the French adverb “early.”
Tuesday, August 28. Somewhere in France.
“Early” proved to be half past ten yesterday morning. Joe drove us to the city limits, and there we had to pause. According to this year’s rules, ye automobilist pauses at the limits, has his gasoline measured, and then goes on. Returning to town, he has to pay a tax on the added amount of gasoline he brings, or something like that.
We were allowed to go out of town, and some thirty yards beyond the limits we found a garage. There we filled up with essence. Howard did the cranking, which is a necessity with all French cars, and away we went.
It was raining and it was cold. Joe and Howard were in the front seat, Joe driving and Howard studying the road map. I was in the back seat, catching cold.
“We’ll go right ahead,” said Joe, “to Such and Such a Place, and there we’ll stop and have lunch.”
Well, we stopped in Such and Such a Place, but it was not from a desire of lunch. It was because we were compelled to stop.
“Let’s see your papers,” said the stopper in French.
The stoppees, in English, displayed their passes to the American camp. The stopper didn’t know whether they were good or not. He asked us to wait a moment and disappeared out of the rain. We waited several moments. Finally there appeared another stopper, who read carefully our passes and told us they were no good and that we would have to loom up at the City Hall.
We went there, with Joe and Howard in the front seat and an officer and I in the back, me still catching cold, especially in the feet.
In the City Hall were French officers attired in all colors of the French army, which made the colors of the rainbow look like Simon Pure White. Our crime, it seems, was in not having an automobile pass on a red card. Or maybe it was blue. One of the thirty gentlemen in charge said we would have to wait till he telephoned back to Paris. Knowing the French telephone system, we inquired whether we might go across the street and eat. We were told we might.
We went across the street and ate, and it was a good meal, with meat, on a day which was meatless in Paris. A subaltern interrupted the orgy and said we were wanted back in the City Hall. Back there the startling information was that no telephonic satisfaction had been obtained. We asked whether we might go back to the café. There was no
