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 élite 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 marché.
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 à déscendre!"
"you want get out?"
"oui!" replied the misses bingham with simultaneous dignity, and, as the guide merely wiped his forehead again, poppa stepped forward. "can i assist you?" he said, and the misses bingham allowed themselves to be assisted. they were small ladies, dressed in black pongee silk, with sloping shoulders, and they each carried a black fan and a brocaded bag for odds and ends. they were not plain-looking, and yet it was readily seen why nobody had ever married them; they had that look of the predestined single state that you sometimes see even among the very well preserved. one of them had an eye-glass, but it was easy to note even when she was not wearing it that she was a person of independent income, of family, and of new york.
"we are quite willing," said the misses bingham, "to exchange our seats in the coach for yours in the special carriage, if that arrangement suits you."
"bon!" interposed the guide, "and opposite there is one other place if that fat gentleman will squeeze himself a little—eh?"
"come along!" said the fat gentleman equably.
"but i couldn't think of depriving you ladies."
"sir," said one miss bingham, "it is no deprivation."
"we should prefer it," added the other miss bingham. they spoke with decision; one saw that they had not reached middle age without knowing their own minds all the way.
"to tell the truth," added the miss bingham without the eye-glass in a low voice, "we don't think we can stand it."
"i don't precisely take you, madam," said the senator politely.
"i'm an american," she continued.
poppa bowed. "i should have known you for a daughter of the stars and stripes anywhere," he said in his most complimentary tone.
miss bingham looked disconcerted for an instant and went on. "my great grandfather was a.d.c. to general washington. i've got that much reason to be loyal."
"there couldn't have been many such officers," the senator agreed.
"but when i go abroad i don't want the whole of the united states to come with me."
"it takes the gilt off getting back for you?" suggested poppa a little stiffly.
miss bingham failed to take the hint. "we find europe infested with americans," she continued. "it disturbs one's impressions so. and the travelling american invariably belongs to the very least desirable class."
"now i shouldn't have thought so," said the senator, with intentional humour. but it was lost upon miss bingham.
"well, if you like them," said the other one, "you'd better go in the coach."
the senator lifted his hat. "madam," he said, "i thank you for giving to me and mine the privilege of visiting a very questionable scene of the past in the very best society of the present."
and as the guide was perspiring more and more impatiently, we got in.
for some moments the senator sat in silence, reflecting upon this sentiment, with an occasionally heaving breast. circumstances forbade his talking about it, but he cast an eye full of criticism upon the fiacre rolling along far in the rear, and remarked, with a fervor most unusual, that he hoped they liked our dust. we certainly made a great deal of it. momma and i, looking at our fellow travellers, at once decided that the misses bingham had been a little hasty. the fat gentleman, who wore a straw hat very far back, and meant to enjoy himself, was certainly our fellow-citizen. so was his wife, and brother-in-law. so were a bride and bridegroom on the box seat—nothing less than the best of everything for an american honeymoon—and so was a solitary man with a short cut bristly beard, a slouch hat, a pink cotton shirt, and a celluloid collar. but there was an indescribable something about all the rest that plainly showed they had never voted for a president or celebrated a fourth of july. i was still revolving it in my mind when the fat gentleman, who had been thinking of the same thing, said to his neighbour on the other side, a person of serious appearance in a black silk hat, apropos of the line he had crossed by, "i may be wrong, but i shouldn't have put you down to be an american."
"oh, i guess i am," replied the serious man, "but not the united states kind."
"british north," suggested the fat gentleman, with a smile that acknowledged her majesty. "first cousin once removed," and momma and i looked at one another intelligently. we had nothing against canadians, except that they generally talk as if they had the whole of the st. lawrence river and niagara falls in a perpetual lease from providence—and we had never seen so many of them together before. the coach was three-quarters full of these foreigners, if the misses bingham had only known; but as poppa afterwards said, they were probably not foreign enough. it may have been imagination, but i immediately thought i saw a certain meekness, a habit of deference—i wanted to incite them all to treat the guelphs as we did. just then we stopped before the church of st. augustin, and the guide came swinging along the outside of the coach hoarsely emitting facts. everybody listened intently, and i noticed upon the canadian countenances the same determination to be instructed that we always show ourselves. we all meant to get the maximum amount of information for the price, and i don't think any of us have forgotten that the site of st. augustin is three-cornered and its dome resembles a tiara to this day. for a moment i was sorry for the misses bingham, who were absorbing nothing but dust; but, as momma said, they looked very well informed.
it must be admitted that we were a little shy with the guide—we let him bully us. as poppa said, he was certainly well up in his subject, but that was no reason why he should have treated us as if we had all come from st. paul or kansas city. there was a condescension about him that was not explained by the state of his linen, and a familiarity that i had always supposed confined exclusively to the british aristocracy among themselves. he had a red face and a blue eye, with which he looked down on us with scarcely concealed contempt, and he was marvellously agile, distributing his information as open street-car conductors collect fares.
"they seem extremely careful of their herbage in this town," remarked the serious man, and we noticed that it was so. precautions were taken in wire that would have dissuaded a grasshopper from venturing on it. it grew very neatly inside, doubtless with a certain chic, but it had a look of being put on for the occasion that was essentially parisian. also the trees grew up out of iron plates, which was uncomfortable, though, no doubt, highly finished, and the flowers had a cachet about them which made one think of french bonnets. as we rolled into the bois it became evident that the guide had something special to communicate. he raised his voice and coughed, in a manner which commanded instant attention.
"ladies—and genelmen," he said—he always added the gentleman as if they were an after-thought—"you are mos' fortunate, mos' locky. tout paris—all the folks—are still driving their 'orse an' carriage 'ere. one week more—the style will be all gone—what you say—vamoosed? every mother's son! an' cook's excursion party won't see nothin' but ole cabs goin' along!"
"can't we get away from them?" asked the serious person. it was humorously intended—certainly a liberty, and the guide was down on it in an instant.
"get away from them? not if they know you're here!"
at which the serious man looked still more serious, and sympathy for him sprang up in every heart.
we passed longchamps at a steady trot, and the guide's statement that the races there were always held on sunday was received with a silence that evidently disappointed him. it was plain that he had a withering rejoinder ready for sabbatarians, and he waited anxiously, balanced on one foot, for an expression of shocked opinion. it was after we had passed mont valerien, frowning on the horizon, that the man in the pink cotton shirt began to grow restive under so much instruction. he told the serious person that his name was hinkson of iowa, and the serious person was induced to reply that his was pabbley of simcoe, ontario. it was insubordination—the guide was talking about the shelling from mont valerien at the time, with the most patriotic dislocations in his grammar.
"you understan', you see?" he concluded. "now those two genelmen, they don' understan', and they don' see. an' when they get back to the united states they won' be able to tell their wives an' sweethearts anythin' about mont valerien! all right, genelmen—please yourselves. mais you please remember i am just like william shekspeare—i give no repétition!"
it was then that the serious man demonstrated that britons, even the north american kind, never, never would be slaves. placing his black silk hat carefully a little further back on his head, he leaned forward.
"now look here, mister," he said, "you're as personal as a yankee newspaper. so far as i know, you're not the friend of my childhood, nor the companion of my later years, except for this trip only, and i'd just as soon you realised it. as far as i know, you're paid to point out objects of historical interest. don't you trouble to entertain us any further than that. we'll excuse you!"
"ladies—an' genelmen," continued the guide calmly, "in a lil' short while we shall be approached to the town of st. cloud. at that town of st. cloud will be one genelman will take the excellen' group—fotograff. to appear in that fotograff, you will please all keep together with me. afterwards, you will look at the fountains, at the magnificent panorama de paris, and we go on to versailles. on the return journey, if you like that fotograff you can buy, if you don't like, you don' buy. an' if you got no wife an' no sweetheart all the same you keep your temper!"
but mr. pabbley had settled his hat in its normal position and did not intend to clear his brow for action again. all might have gone well, had it not been for the patriotic sensitiveness of mr. hinkson of iowa.
"i think i heard you pass a remark about american newspapers, sir," said mr hinkson of iowa. "think you've got any better in canada?"
mr. pabbley smiled. there may have been some fancied superiority in the smile.
"i guess they suit us better," he said.
"got any circulation figures about you?"
"not being an advertising agent, i don't carry them."
"i see!" mr. hinkson's manner of saying he saw clearly implied that there might have been other reasons why mr. pabbley declined to produce those figures. we were all listening now, and the guide had subsided upon the box seat. the senator's face wore the judicial expression it always assumes when he has a difficulty in keeping himself out of the conversation. it became easier than ever to separate the republican and the british elements on that coach.
"well," said mr. hinkson, "don't you folks get pretty tired of paying victoria taxes sometimes?"
the british contingent seemed to find this amusing. the americans looked as if it were no laughing matter.
"i don't believe her majesty is much the richer for all she gets out of us," said mr. pabbley.
"oh, i guess you send over a pretty good lump per annum, don't you?"
"not a red cent, sir," said mr. pabbley decisively. "we run our own show."
"what about that aristocrat that rules the country up at ottawa?"
"oh, he hasn't got any say! we get him out and pay him a salary to save ourselves the trouble of electing a president. a presidential election's bad for business, bad for politics, bad for morals."
"you seem to know. doesn't it ever make you tired to hear yourselves called subjects? don't you ever want to be free and equal, like us? trot out the truth now—the george washington article!"
"mister," said mr. pabbley, "i flatter myself that canadians are a good deal like united states folks already, and i don't mind congratulating both our nations on the resemblance. but i'm bound to add that, while i would wish to imitate the american people in many ways still further, i wouldn't be like you personally, no, not under any circumstances nor in any respect."
at this moment it was necessary to dismount, and, as poppa and i both immediately became engaged in reconciling momma to the necessity of walking to the top of the plateau, i lost the rest of the conversation. momma, when it was necessary to walk anywhere, always became pathetic and offered to stay behind alone. she declared on this occasion that she would be perfectly happy in the coach with the dear horses, and poppa had to resort to extreme measures. "please yourself, augusta," he said. "your lightest whim is law to me, and you know it. but i'm going to hate standing up in that photograph all alone with my only child, like any widower."
"alexander!" exclaimed momma at once. "what a dreadful idea! i think i might be able to manage it."
the photographer was there with his camera. the guide marshalled us up to him, falling back now and then to bark at the heels of the lagging ones, and, with the assistance of a bench and an acacia, we were rapidly arranged, the short ones standing up, the tall ones sitting down, everyone assuming his most pleasing expression, and the misses bingham standing alone, apart, on the brink, looking on under an umbrella that seemed to protect them from intimate association with the democracy in any form. we saw the guide approach them in gingerly inquiry, but, before simultaneous waves of their two black fans, he retired in disorder. the bride had slipped her hand upon her husband's shoulder, just to mark his identity; the fat gentleman had removed his hat and hurriedly put it on again, and the photographer had gone under his curtain for the third time, when mr. hinkson of iowa, who sat in a conspicuous cross-legged position in the foreground, drew from his pocket a handkerchief and spread it carefully out over one knee. it was not an ordinary handkerchief, it was a pocket edition of the stars and stripes, all red, and blue, and white, and it attracted the instant attention of every eye. one of the eyes was mr. pabbley's, who appeared to clear the group at a bound in consequence.
"ladies and gentlemen," exclaimed mr. pabbley with vehemence, "does anyone happen to have a union jack about him or her?"
they felt in their pockets, but they hadn't.
"then," said mr. pabbley, who was evidently aroused, "unless the gentleman from iowa will withdraw his handkerchief, i refuse to sit."
"i guess we aren't any of us annexationists," said a middle-aged woman from toronto in a duster, and proceeded to follow mr. pabbley.
the rest of the canadians looked at each other undecidedly for a moment and then slowly filed after the middle-aged woman. there remained the mere wreck of a group clustering round the national emblem on the leg of mr. hinkson. the guide was expostulating himself speechless, the photographer was in convulsions, the senator saw it was time to interfere. leaning over, he gently tapped the patriot from iowa on the shoulder.
"aren't you satisfied with the sixty million fellow-citizens you've got already," said poppa, "that you want to grab nine half-starved canucks with a hand camera?"
"they're in the majority here," said mr. hinkson fiercely, "and i dare any one of 'em to touch that flag. go along over there and join 'em if you like—they're goin' to be done by themselves—to send to queen victoria!"
but that was further than anybody would go, even in defence of cosmopolitanism. the republic rallied round mr. hinkson's leg, while the dominion with much dignity supported mr. pabbley. as momma said, human nature is perfectly extraordinary.
for the rest of the journey to versailles there was hardly any international conversation. mr. hinkson tied his handkerchief round his neck, and the canadians tried to look as if they had no objection. we passed through the villages of montretout and buze. i know we did because momma took down the names, but i fancy they couldn't have differed much from the general landscape, for i don't remember a thing about them. the misses bingham came and sat next us at luncheon, which flattered both momma and me immensely, though the senator didn't seem able to see where the distinction came in, and during this meal they pointed out the fact that mr. hinkson was drinking lemonade with his roast mutton, and asked us how we could travel with such a combination. i remember poppa said that it was a combination that mr. hinkson and mr. hinkson only had to deal with, but momma and i felt the obloquy of it a good deal, though when we came to think of it we were no more responsible for mr. hinkson than the misses bingham were. after that, walking rapidly behind the guide, we covered centuries of french history, illustrated by chairs and tables and fire-irons and chandeliers and four-post beds. momma told me afterwards that she was rather sorry she had taken me with the guide through madame du barry's fascinating petit trianon, the things he didn't say sounded so improper, but when i assured her that it was only contemporary scandal that had any effect on our morals, she said she supposed that was so, and somehow one never did expect people who wore curled wigs and knee-breeches to behave quite prettily. the rooms were dotted with groups of people who had come in fiacres or by tramway, which made it difficult for the guide to impart his information only to those who had paid for it. he generally surmounted this by saying, "ladies and genelmen, i want you to stick closer than brothers. when you hear me a-talkin' don' you go turnin' over your baedekers and lookin' out of the window. if i didn't know a great big sight more about versailles than baedeker does i wouldn't be here makin' a clown of myself; an' i'll show you the view out of the window all in good time. you see that lady an' two genelmen over there? they're listenin' all right enough because they don't belong to this party an' they want to get a little information cheap price. all right—i let 'em have it!" at which the lady and two gentlemen usually melted away looking annoyed.
we were fascinated with the coaches of state and much impressed with the cost of them. as momma said, it took so very little imagination to conjure up a royal philip inside bowing to the populace.
"what a pity we couldn't have had them over!" said poppa indiscreetly.
"where you mean?" demanded the guide, "over to america? i know—for that ole chicago show! you are the five hundred american who has said that to me this summer! number five hundred! nossir, we don't lend those carriage. we don't even drive them ourself."
"no more kings and queens nowadays," remarked mr. hinkson, "this century's got no use for them."
i think the guide was a monarchist. "nossir," he said, "you don't see no more kings an' queens of france, but you do see a good many people travellin' that's nothin' like so good for trade."
at which mr. pabbley's eye sought that of the guide, and expressed its appreciation in a marked and joyous wink.
in the palace, especially in the picture rooms, there were generally benches along the walls. when momma observed this she arranged that she should go on ahead and sit down and get the impression, while poppa and i caught up from time to time with the guide and the information. the guide was quite agreeable about it, when it was explained to him.
he was either a very thoughtless or a very insincere person, however. stopping before the portrait of an officer in uniform, he drew us all together. the canadians, headed by mr. pabbley, were well to the fore, and it was to them in particular that he appeared to address himself when he said, "take a good look at this picture, ladies and genelmen. there is a man wat lives in your 'istory an', if i may say, in your 'art—as he does in ours. there's a man, ladies and genelmen, that helped you on to liberty. take a good look at 'im, you'll be glad to remember it afterward."
and it was general lafayette!
