The Strange Adventures of Mr. John Smith in Paris/Chapter 1
IN FOUR PARTS
Part I.
CHAPTER I.
FROM the mottled front of the Gare du Nord, in the gathering gloom of dusk, Mr. John Smith took his first look at Paris; and so far as he could see, it didn’t have a thing on Passaic, New Jersey. No fine frenzy of imagination was kindled by this initial glimpse of the wonder city of the world; he merely pondered how. in the absence of trolley cars, he could get down to the Rue de Main Street, or whatever they called it, where the hotels were. No unspeakable emotion, born of a long cherished dream come true, struggled within his soul; the thing uppermost in his mind was a deep seated craving for a fifteen minute séance with a beef stew that had lots of potatoes in it. It would require many beef stews, he figured, to fill the aching void caused by his eight-day ocean trip.
So, meditatively, for a time Mr. John Smith stood looking upon Paris with comparative eye. And the longer he looked the worse it was for Paris. The time stained, weather beaten buildings across the street were not one-two-nine with the new brick block back home; the rain drenched square before him was neither wider, nor grander, nor in any way more calculated to arouse his enthusiasm than was the square in front of the church at Passaic-ave. and Grove-st. Trim lines of trees edged the curbs straight away ahead of him; but they would be dwarfs if set down beside the trees back home. Awnings were flapping in the wind which drove the mist before it; but the awnings back home always flapped when the wind blew. The restless throng on the sidewalk was neither more restless nor more dense than the Saturday night crowd on Main-ave. And trolley cars! In the absence of these, Mr. Smith was surprised that Paris had even electric lights.
Back home in Passaic, New Jersey, Mr. John Smith was assistant paying teller of a bank. In person he looked precisely like the assistant paying teller of a bank in Passaic, New Jersey. His hair was wiry, straight, and of a dingy black; his face the rugged, strongly limned countenance of one who shaves often and scrupulously; and he had the direct, straight staring, unerring eyes of a man who lives for, by, and with figures, accustomed to seeing all that is writ and no more. He had never seen Niagara Falls, had Mr. Smith; but he knew to an ounce their capacity in horsepower if properly harnessed, and wondered why some one had not harnessed them. He had never crossed the placid bosom of the majestic Hudson River without wondering why it had not been filled in and cut up into city lots. Of course the ocean was all right; they caught fish in that.
There were faint lines of weariness in Mr. Smith’s face now, and the straight staring eyes were somber; not be cause of any disillusionment at his first sight of Paris, but because he was tired and sleepy and hungry. He wanted to stretch his long legs in a real bed again after his eight nights of fitful slumber on a folding shelf in a stateroom. It was good to stand on something that didn’t wabble, and it would be better to draw up to a table, beyond the sound of the heaving ocean, and eat. Heaving! Mr. Smith shuddered at the word.
These physical comforts provided, Mr. Smith would be prepared to rise and shake Paris in his teeth, as a terrier shakes a rat; for he had a purpose in Paris, did Mr. Smith, a purpose fixed, immutable, as was every purpose that ever laid hold of him. Nothing short of a purpose would ever have dragged him so far away from dear old Passaic. The somberness passed from the straight staring eyes and there came a glint of steel into them as that purpose recurred to him. It made him impatient to eat, to sleep, and to be at it. So the first thing was to find a hotel. He reëntered the great railway station and approached a porter.
“Say, son,” he began affably, “I want a hack.”
The porter stared at him and shrugged his shoulders. “Non compren' pas,” he said.
“A hack, a cab, a buggy,” Mr. Smith explained.
The porter shook his head.
“A vehicle, a wagon, a truck.”
The porter appeared to be suffering intensely in his efforts to understand. His shoulders were squirming, his arms writhing, the agony was depicted upon every line of his face.
“Something with wheels on it, you know, that turn round and round,” Mr. Smith elucidated patiently. “An oxcart, a herdic, a bicycle, a wheelbarrow—something to ride in.”
“Non compren pas!” the porter wailed helplessly. Oh, the pain and sorrow in his face!
“Well, don’t take it to heart so,” Mr. Smith advised kindly. “I want to ride, do you understand? In a—a dray, or an omnibus, or a taxicab, or—”
“Taxi! Oui!”
The fuse had burned to the powder, and the explosion came; the serenity of a summer's day settled upon the porter’s face. He seized upon Mr. Smith's suitcase and gently but firmly led him around to his right, where he ceremoniously bowed him into an automobile. The chauffeur appeared at the door for instructions.
“Now, son, we're getting somewhere,” Mr. Smith remarked pleasantly. “I want to go to a quiet little hotel where no one will think I’m a Standard Oil magnate. How about it?”
The chauffeur looked at the porter, and the porter looked at the chauffeur, They both seemed to be suffering.
“Non compren pas!” the chauffeur complained.
Mr. Smith sighed deeply and prepared to go into details. “A hotel,” he said distinctly, “a place where you eat and sleep. A hash house, a beanery?”
The chauffeur stared at him helplessly, then turned to the porter, and they rattled unanimously. Mr. Smith sat patiently waiting.
“A boarding house, a soup kitchen?” he told them. “A hotel? Why, dam it! isn’t there such a thing as a hotel in Paris? Hotel! H-o-t-e-1!”
“Non compren' pas!” the porter and chauffeur bleated in unison.
Mr. Smith drew pencil and paper from his pocket and printed a word on it in large letters. “Hotel!” he bellowed at them suddenly.
They took the paper and read it. “Hôtel!” They burst into song triumphantly. The storm had passed; peace had come.
“Sure, a hotel,” Mr. Smith agreed. “Now, son, that you're hep, understand me that I want a cheap little place where I can get a room and bath and something to eat at about two dollars and a half per, on the American plan?”
“Oui, oui—Americaine!”
They seized upon the word they understood and bore it aloft. Mr. Smith was satisfied, and when the porter's palm was outstretched thrust his hand into his pocket. He had been doing that steadily ever since he left Passaic—good old Passaic! He dropped a coin into the waiting hand, then lounged back in the automobile.
“And bang went ten cents!” he quoted.
The taxicab wriggled out into the Rue de la Fayette and went scudding along toward the Place de l’Opéra. Mr. Smith looked out the window with growing interest and wonder. ’Twas a biggish sort of place, after all, was Paris. Passaic would have to look to her laurels! He was whirled past the Opera House and into the Rue de la Paix.
THE car stopped in the Place Vendome. Mr. Smith glanced up at the sign above the door of a hotel and felt a cold chill start at the base of his brain and run down his spinal column, after which it ran up again. It was one word, “Ritz!” That was no place for a young man with a hundred and seventy-three dollars, who might have to stay in Paris for five or six weeks. He leaned out and spoke to the chauffeur.
“Drive on!” he directed.
“Hotel Ritz," the chauffeur informed him complacently.
“I know it," said Mr. Smith. “Drive on! Giddap! Cluck-cluck!”
The chauffeur came around to the door to make it clear to Monsieur. This was a hotel, the Hotel Ritz.
“On your way!” Mr. Smith expostulated. “Sick him! Vamose!”
Three or four pedestrians paused to listen. Monsieur did not understand. They undertook to assist him. It was the Hotel Ritz! They assured Monsieur upon their words as gentlemen and upon the sacred honor of France that it was the Hotel Ritz. The three or four grew to a dozen, and they assured Monsieur it was the Hotel Ritz. Oh, la la! Mr. Smith sat patiently waiting for the hubbub to stop; and it only grew.
“I said a cheap hotel!” he roared suddenly, and that mighty voice from Passaic extinguished the jabber about him as the windstorm extinguishes a candle. “This is no place for me! Giddap! Skiddoo!”
Whereupon the chivalry of France bowed low and begged Monsieur to believe them when they assured him it was the Hotel Ritz. A sergeant de ville nosed his way through, and Monsieur could take it from him that these gentlemen were telling the truth. He gave way to an imposing individual who came out of the hotel, wearing more uniform than Napoleon ever saw. Mr. Smith thought he was the Chief of Police; but he was only the head porter, and he added his voice to the hubbub. Mr. Smith looked out upon the growing mob with amazement in his straight staring eyes.
AND then came to him faintly the voice of an angel, an angel from the United States, who seemed to be slightly amused. The crowd fell back respectfully, and a young woman stood before him, a tailor made young woman, trig and trim and charming. Her blue eyes were alight with understanding, and a smile tugged at the corners of her rosy mouth.
“Can’t I assist you, Mr. Smith?” she queried, and the sound of his own language stirred a responsive chord deep in Mr. Smith’s heart. “There has been some mistake, I am sure. Perhaps I can right it for you?”
“Thank you, ma’am,” said Mr. Smith humbly, and it didn’t occur to him to wonder that she knew his name. “I told the driver to take me to some cheap American plan hotel, and he didn’t seem to understand. If you’ll tell him, please, ma’am, I’ll be much obliged.”
“Certainly.” With perfect gravity the girl turned and spoke to the chauffeur. After a moment he touched his cap and climbed back into the seat. The machine whirred and started to move.
“Thank you, ma’am.” Mr. Smith said simply.
The girl smiled, nodded brightly, and entered another automobile which stood at the curb. Looking back, Mr. Smith saw her car swing about the Colonne Vendome, and then his own car turned into the Rue de Castiglione and she was lost.
“Why, Edna, how could you thrust yourself into a crowd like that?” a middle-aged woman inquired of the girl reprovingly. “It was not—”
“Why shouldn’t I have done it, Aunty?” the girl interrupted. “Mr. Smith was a passenger on the steamer with us, and shipboard acquaintances are privileged to help one another when one is in trouble. And he was in trouble, wasn’t he?”
She laughed a little, and then the mood passed and she sat for a long time staring out the window with sad, thoughtful eyes.