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Page 20
Momma regarded the portrait for a moment in calm disapprobation. "I
daresay she was very clever," she said at length, "but if you wish to
know my opinion I _don't think much of her_. And before taking us to see
another female portrait, Mr. Wick, I should be obliged if you would take
the precaution of finding out _who she was_."
After which we drove quietly home.
CHAPTER VI.
Poppa decided that we had better go to Versailles by Cook's
four-in-hand. There were other ways of going, but he thought we might as
well take the most distinguished. He was careful to explain that the
mere grandeur of this method of transportation had no weight with him;
he was compelled to submit to the ostentation of it for another purpose
which he had in view.
"I am not a person," said poppa, "nor is any member of my family, to
thrust myself into aristocratic circles in foreign lands; but when an
opportunity like this occurs for observing them without prejudice, so to
speak, I believe in taking it."
We went to the starting place early, so as to get good seats, for, as
momma said, the whole of the Parisian _�lite_ with the President thrown
in wouldn't induce her to ride with her back to the horses. In that
position she would be incapable of observation.
The coaches were not there when we arrived, and presently the Senator
discovered why. He told us with a slightly depressed air that they had
gone round to the hotels. "Daughter," he said to me, "J.P. Wicks does
hate to make a fool of himself, and this morning he's done it twice
over. The best seats will go to the people who had the sense to stay at
their hotels, and the fact that the coaches go round shows that they run
for tourist traffic only. There won't be a Paris aristocrat among them,"
continued poppa gloomily, "nary an aristocrat."
When they came up we saw that there wasn't. The coaches were full of
tourist traffic. It was mounted on the box seats very high up, where it
looked conspicuously happy, and sounded a little hysterical; and it was
packed, tight and warm and anticipant into every available seat. From
its point of vantage, secured by waiting at the hotel for it, the
tourist traffic looked down upon the Wick family on the pavement, in
irritating compassion. As momma said, if we hadn't taken our tickets it
was enough to have sent us to the Bon March�.
A man in a black frock coat and white shirt cuffs came bareheaded from
the office and pointed us out to the interpreter, who wore brass
buttons. The interpreter appeared to mention it to the guide, who wiped
his perspiring brows under a soft brown felt hat. A fiacre crawled round
the corner and paused to look on, and the Senator said, "Now which of
you three gentlemen is responsible for my ride to Versailles?"
The interpreter looked at him with a hostile expression, the guide made
a gesture of despair at the volume of tourist traffic, and the man with
the shirt cuffs said, "You 'ave took your plazes on ze previous day?"
"I took them from you ten minutes ago," poppa replied. "What a memory
you've got!"
"Zen zare is nothings guaranteed. But we will send special carriage, and
be'ind you can follow up," and he indicated the fiacre which had now
drawn into line.
"I don't think so," said poppa, "when I buy four-in-hand tickets I don't
take one-in-hand accommodation."
"You will not go in ze private carriage?"
"I will not."
"_Mais_--it is much ze preferable."
"I don't know why I should contradict you," said poppa, but at that
moment the difficulty was solved by the Misses Bingham.
"Guide!" cried one of the Misses Bingham, beckoning with her fan, "_Nous
voulons � d�scendre!_"
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