Over Periscope Pond

ay, October

st Mo

o absolutely noir, that after a few hours of fitful slumber I seem to be done for the night. After I have described this place you will not wonder that ink is not provided, but you will forgive pencil, I hope (it's the nice black one out o

nd brighter. We watched the pilot row out from the pilot ship in a little boat, and although the sea looked perfectly calm compared to what it had been, it was like climbing mounta

round saying good-bye to everybody, and then stood in line to see the préfet de police. Right here I want to say that of all the fairy tales that were told me, the ones about the difficulties of getting to Paris were the most fantastic. There were a good many tiresome details: I had to show our passports everywhere, but everything went smoot

ecked, send my cable, and telegraph Miss Curtis, pay my excess, and buy my railroad ticket, find a carriage, and leave that dock. It sounds simple, but with a million people all hur

sant as anything. I never even unlocked my

ght signs all in French, and foreign-looking people in the streets, and many soldiers and many, many widows. Queer-painted carts and little houses and little narrow alleys with uneven houses, dark and aged, h

y for bed and it was quarter of ten. The train for Paris left at one-three hours to wait and we so tired we couldn't budge. How that parlor rocked and reele

better than that. I walked in the middle of the street and never felt bigger in my life. Miss Short sent a cable, and I went by myself into a little shop and bought a copy of the "Marseillaise"-m

pend hours in describing her, but I can't stop now. I'll just say she was Elsie Ferguson in "The Strange Woman," and let you picture her. The prettiest, most charming, and warmest creature I ever met. It was the first time I had heard a girl speak high French. There were no French women on the boat, you remember, and it was like music.

the French girl got out at Poitiers-I must tell you that she is married and her husband is an officer and has just recovered from being badly wounded. She is going to find out on Sunday if he has to go back, becau

fat woman and I would say things across the compartment to one another and they would offer a remark now and then, until we all got to talking. I shall have to write some of t

me here and see me installed. There were no taxis left, and it was still drizzling, and you know my luggage,-the eleventh hour Altman winter flannels boiling out of the carryall with price-marks dangling and soiled from constant exposure,-and me tired and dirty with the ship still going round in my head, standing alone by a dark and empty cabstand at 10.30 p.m. in Paris, the unknown. The others all rattled off, and Mr. Baxt

ked like the door of a stable, saying that, indeed, it was H?tel des St. Pères-but oh, so dark. It looked as though Louis Treize's sub-valet de chambre had boarded it up and gone away and that no one had ever been there since. We knocked and knocked, and after ages we heard a shuffling step and the great black doors swung open. There stood the sleepiest, wall-eyed person, almost entirely covered by a big spotted butcher's apron. I asked in uncertain tones if they had place for Miss Root, and he shook his head and I asked if he knew Miss Curtis, and he said no, and then I asked if I could get a room. It was the most awful-looking place. I didn't know just what to do. He made for a dark

ause, as he was turning down my bed,-I told him that "je viens de venir d'Amérique," and that

bed; also a marble washstand, which I feel must be a bit of ornamentation looted from Napoleon's tomb. I looked out of the window, but it's perfectly black. There may be a blank wall six inches away, or a court or a forest of trees or almost anything for all

tween two jibs of the good swordfisher, "Edmund Black." The pillow is enormous and uncompromising-my own little baby pillow Mrs. Bigelow put in her trunk for me.

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o find me, and she said that I had had two telephone calls, and that a young gentleman had been here in a taxi. It was Mr. Baxter, of course, because he said he would take me back to the Quai d'Orsay and help me with my trunk and customs and prefect of police; and there, they'd told him that I was asleep, and not to be waked up! I felt hopeless at the tho

e followed, but bang went the doors without apparently word or sign from any one and up I shot. Up and up; and I was scared to death. I felt sure I was going through the roof; but eventually we stopped and I got out and rang at the first bell to the left, as I'd been told. No answer; I rang and rang; still no answer. I gathered that they were at the headquarters, so I sat down on the top step of the stair and wrote on the back of my visiting card that I was at the H?tel des St. Pères. I was a little discouraged, because it meant that I would have to wait at the hotel until some one could call or write. In the mean time the lift was standing inert and I couldn't make it go down-of course, I wouldn't have gone down in it myself for the gross receipts. I could hear people ringing wildly down below and pretty soon a man came leaping up the stairs. I asked in my prettiest French if he could make the thing go down, and he couldn't any more than I. He started to go into an opposite apartment, and as the door opened I heard some one greet him in English. I jumped up; it was the first English I'd heard since the others had left me. I rushed forward and almost put my foot in the door

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ittle street in the old Latin Quarter, where all the painters from time immemorial have lived. It was dark, and no conveniences, no heat, no running water, and no bathtub in the whole house. But I peeped into one of the rooms and there was a wood-fire singing s

city. I sat on the extremest edge of the seat in the taxi gazing and gazing at everything. Mrs. Shurtleff delighted in my delight, and she said it made her live again the enthusiasm and wonder that she felt when she came here ten years ago. So many queer things I noticed that she grew used to years ago; the door-handles in the middle of t

, that I couldn't believe existed in the world. I haven't done any real work yet; but here is something I want to tell you. We need everything, particularly warm things, blankets; and big wide shoes above everything. I saw men turn away some people to-day, and I tell you I'd like to snatch these bedclothes out of the hotel

nd happy than I had expected, although

lovely sunlight and trees and a park below. I move in November 4th, and I am glad to have it settled. Li

of police by their first names. I had no trouble, but it is tedious to go from one place to another. My official title on the Paris register is no

's Ve

Vest

ty long. We went to church to the Wednesday evening meeting. We could hear them singing "Abide with Me" as we came up the street, and it was the first note of music that I had heard in many a

ing along with a little child, watching with an inscrutable expression a car full of soldiers starting for the front; a group of poor people, market-women, old men, and children, pressing closely around a sign-poster who is posting up a list, "Morts pour la Patrie." Many times you see the signs: "Don't talk, be careful, enemy ears are listening." Oh, this country is at war, but I can'

ermis de séjour granted by the police, my trunk by my side, my work fairly started, the Shurtleffs perfectly wonderful, and Mrs. Bigelow at hand and happy, why, nothing could b

rite

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