The cracking of the drivers' whips alone made a _feu
de joie_ that never ceased, and listening to it we knew that we ought to
feel happy and elated. The driver of our fiacre was fat and rubicund, he
wore a green coat, brass buttons, and a shiny top hat, and looked as if
he drank constantly. His jollity was perfunctory, I know, and covered a
grasping nature, but it was very well imitated, like everything in
Paris. As he whirled us, with a whip-report like a pistol-shot, into the
train of traffic in the middle of the street, we felt that we were
indeed in the city of appearances; and I put down in my mind, not having
my note-book, that Paris lives up to its photographs.
"We mustn't forget our serious object, dear," said momma, as we rolled
over the cobblestones--"our literary object. What shall we note this
morning? The broad streets, the elegant shops--_do_ look at that one!
Darling, is it absolutely necessary to go to the Louvre this morning?
There are some things we really need."
Momma addressed the Senator. I mentioned to her once that her way of
doing it was almost English in its demonstrativeness, and my other
parent told me privately he wished I hadn't--it aggravated it so.
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