Oh, Major, wait till you see that taxi bill!
Friday, September 14. Paris.
The traffic chief said that before he could examine me for a license I must show him my registration card from a regular police commissioner. I had been told I ought to have one of those darn things, but had passed it up. Now I was face to face with the necessity of acquiring the card and doing it quick. The nearest station was only a few blocks away. I found it jampacked with people who looked as if they all worked in East St. Louis. I flagged an attendant.
“I want to register,” I told him.
“You’ll be called when it’s your turn,” he said, and gave me a number. It was 89,041.
“How long will I have to wait?”
He pondered.
“I think they’re now in the twenty-thousands,” he said.
Suddenly I bethought me of a document in my pocket, a letter from the boss of the Maison de la Presse. I flashed it on him.
“Ah-h-h!” he sighed, and led me through the mob to the inner shrine.
In ten minutes I had my card. The commissioner didn’t even want a picture, or nothin’. I plunged through the gang again and was stared at enviously. Some of the poor blokes have undoubtedly been waiting there since the Kaiser was forced into the war.
Again I appeared before the traffic chief. “Of course,” he said, “I will have to examine your papers. And avez-vous une photophie?”
I came through.
“Now,” I said, “we’re fifty-fifty. You have one and I have one.”
But he wasn’t listening. He was rummaging for the deadly dossier.
“This,” he said, when he had found one, “will have to be filled out.”
“Yes,” I replied, “I think I recall filling one out last time I was in France.”
“This car belongs to an American army officer?”
“Ah, oui.”
“What does he intend to do with the car?”
The temptation was strong to say he intended using it to tour the trenches. But it was no time to trifle.
“He expects to ride round the camp in it, sir. He is in one of the high commands and has to do a lot of inspecting.”
“Do you know the traffic laws of Paris?”
“Ah, oui.”
He didn’t ask me what they were. But I could have told him. Any part of the street you like, with a minimum speed limit of forty miles on the straightaway and sixty-five miles round the corners.
“You are going to take the car right out of Paris?”
“Ah, oui.”
“That’s all,” he said, and handed me a driver’s license, horizon blue with saffron stripes.
I thanked him and bowed myself out of the place.
“From now on,” I thought, “it’s clear sailing.”
The car was ready. I had in my mind’s eye a nearby unfrequented street, where I was going to master the driving of it in ten minutes. Then I was going to shoot her up to the hotel, get my baggage and leave town.
“How about gas and oil?” I inquired.
“Oil, oui, but essence, no,” said the mechanic.
“Well, throw in ten gallons,” said I.
“Ah, but has monsieur an essence ticket?”
Monsieur never heard of it.
“Ah, then, monsieur can get no essence.”
“Well for—” and monsieur used harsh words.
“Monsieur can easily obtain a ticket,” said the guy when things had quieted down. “Monsieur’s military passes will be suffisant.”
“Where at?”
“At the Maison du Contrôle de l’Essence.”
“And that is—?”
“Vingt sept, Rue Yaki Hula Hickey Dula.”
“Is that as far away as it sounds?”
“Monsieur can go there and be back in une heure.”
Monsieur crawled wearily into a taxi and started for Honolulu. The military passes did prove suffisant, and there was no trouble getting a fifty-gallon book at two francs per gal.
“I’ll save time now,” I thought. “I’ll pick up my baggage on the way back to the garage.”
So I told my driver to stop at the hotel. A telegram was waiting there for me.
“Hold car in Paris,” it said. “Camp may be moved any day.”
This blow fell at fourteen o’clock this afternoon. By half-past fifteen I had called up every steamship office and learned that the next boat for America would leave from England next Wednesday night. I am going to be aboard.
And now I have for sale, at auction:
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One pass through the French war zone.
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One pass good in the American camp.
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One driver’s license.
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One book of essence tickets.
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One road map.
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One registration card.
I think I will leave the four tires and the offset clef à vis and the wheel puller with the car. Also the car’s license. The major is perfectly trustworthy. I only hope he doesn’t get killed before my expense account reaches him.
VII
I Start Home, with a Stopover at London
Saturday, September 15. Paris.
The gentleman at the American Embassy, which I visited late yesterday afternoon, spake truth when he said it was some job to get away from this place.
“If you want to leave on Sunday,” quoth he, “you’ll have to rise early Saturday and keep going all day. See our consul first thing in the morning, and he’ll tell you all you have to do.”
So I saw our consul first thing this morning. In fact, I beat him to his office. When he came in he was cordial and unsuspicious, rare qualities in a consul. He stamped my passport “Bon pour se rendre en Amérique par Grande Bretagne” and a great deal more.
“Now,” he said, “you’ll have to be viséed by the préfet de police and approved by the British Military Control. I don’t know in what order. They change it every two or three days to keep you guessing.”
I chose the British Control first and, of course, was wrong. But it took an hour to find this out.
There was a big crowd of us, and we were all given numbers, as in a barber shop of a Saturday night. But the resemblance to
