THE AMERICAN
themselves at one of the little tables stationed at the door of the café which projects, or then projected, into the great open quadrangle. The place was filled with people, the fountains were spouting, a band was playing, clusters of chairs were gathered beneath all the lime-trees and buxom, white-capped nurses, seated along the benches, were offering to their infant charges the amplest facilities for nutrition. There was an easy, homely gaiety in the whole scene, and Christopher Newman felt it to be characteristically, richly Parisian.
"And now," began Mr. Tristram when they had tasted the decoction he had caused to be served to them,—"now just give an account of yourself. What are your ideas, what are your plans, where have you come from and where are you going? In the first place, where are you hanging out?"
"At the Grand Hotel."
He put out all his lights. "That won't do! You must change."
"Change?" demanded Newman. "Why, it's the finest hotel I ever was in."
"You don't want a 'fine' hotel; you want something small and quiet and superior, where your bell's answered and your personality recognised."
"They keep running to see if I've rung before I've touched the bell," said Newman, "and as for my personality they're always bowing and scraping to it."
"I suppose you're always tipping them. That's very bad style."
"Always? By no means. A man brought me something yesterday and then stood loafing about in a beg-
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