A Voyage of Consolation Part 8

"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 pa.s.sed 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 pa.s.sed Mont Valerien, frowning on the horizon, that the man in the pink cotton s.h.i.+rt 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 sh.e.l.ling 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 _repet.i.tion_!"

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 pa.s.s 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 a.s.sumes 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 Was.h.i.+ngton 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 circ.u.mstances 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 a.s.sistance of a bench and an acacia, we were rapidly arranged, the short ones standing up, the tall ones sitting down, everyone a.s.suming 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 a.s.sociation 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 ident.i.ty; 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 cl.u.s.tering 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 pa.s.sed 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, ill.u.s.trated 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 Pet.i.t Trianon, the things he didn't say sounded so improper, but when I a.s.sured 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!