“You will be coming back by then,” he said, “and you will see it in all its glory. We will go to Fontainebleau and ride.” That sounded very promising to me. I could not believe that these dull cobble-stone streets through which we were passing were part of a city of over ninety thousand, and that there was much manufacturing here. There were so few people in sight. It had a gray, shut-up appearance--none of the flow and spirit of the towns of the American Middle West. It occurred to me at once that, though I might like to travel here, I should never like to live here. Then we reached the railway station again. CHAPTER XXI PARIS! There is something about the French nation which, in spite of its dreary-looking cities, exhibits an air of metropolitan up-to-dateness. I don’t know where outside of America you will find the snap and intensity of emotion, ambition, and romance which you find everywhere in French streets. The station, when we returned to it, was alive with a crowd of bustling, hurrying people, buying books and papers at news-stands, looking after their luggage in the baggage-room, and chattering to the ticket-sellers through their windows. A train from Paris was just in and they were hurrying to catch that; and as I made my first French purchase--twenty centimes’ worth of post-cards of Amiens--our train rolled in. It was from the North--such a long train as you frequently see in America, with cars labeled Milan, Trieste, Marseilles, Florence, and Rome. I could hardly believe it, and asked Barfleur as he bustled about seeing that the luggage was put in the proper carriage, where it came from. He thought that some of these cars started from St. Petersburg and others from Denmark and Holland. They had a long run ahead of them yet--over thirty hours to Rome, and Paris was just one point in their journey. We crowded into one car--stuffy with luggage, its windows damp with human breath, various nationalities occupying the section--and disposed of our grips, portmanteaus, rugs and so on, as best we could. I slipped the bustling old _facteur_ a franc--not so much because he deserved it, but because he had such a gay and rakish air. His apron swung around his legs like a skirt, and his accordion-plaited cap was lolling gaily over one ear. He waved me a smiling farewell and said something in French which I wished I could understand. Then I realized for the first time what a pity it is not to understand the language of the country in which you are traveling. As the train sped on through the dark to Paris I fell to speculating on the wonders I was to see. Barfleur was explaining to me that in order to make my entrance into Paris properly gay and interesting, we were to dine at the Café de Paris and then visit the Folies-Bergère and afterwards have supper at the Abbaye Thélème.