There are two ways of reaching Longchamps, the right way and the
wrong way. The wrong way is to go with the crowd the entire distance
through the Bois, and so find yourself stopped half a mile from the
race-track in a barricade of carriages and hired fiacres, with the
wheels scraping, and the noses of the horses rubbing the backs of the
carriages in front. This is entertaining for a quarter of an hour, as
you will find that every American or English man and woman you have
ever met is sitting within talking distance of you, and as you weave
your way in and out like a shuttle in a great loom you have a chance to
bow to a great many friends, and to gaze for several minutes at a time
at all of the celebrities of Paris. But after an hour has passed, and
you have discovered that your driver is not as clever as the others in
stealing ground and pushing himself before his betters, you begin to
grow hot, dusty, and cross, and when you do arrive at the track you are
not in a proper frame of mind to lose money cheerfully and politely,
like the true sportsman that you ought to be.
The right way to go is through the Bois by the Lakes, stopping within
sound of the waterfall at the Café de la Cascade. The advantage of this
is that you escape the crowd, and that you have the pleasing certainty
in your mind throughout the rest of the afternoon of knowing that you
will be able to find your carriage again when the races are over. If
you leave your fiacre at the main entrance, you will have to pick it
out from three or four thousand others, all of which look exactly
alike; and even if you do tie a red handkerchief around the driver's
whip, you will find that six hundred other people have thought of doing
the same thing, and you will be an hour in finding the right one, and
you will be jostled at the same time by the boys in blouses who are
hunting up lost carriages, and finding the owners to fit them.
You can avoid all this if you go to the Cascade and take your
coachman's little ticket, and send him back to wait for you in the
stables of the café, not forgetting to give him something in advance
for his breakfast. It is then only a three minutes' walk from the
restaurant among the trees to the back door of the race-track, and in
five minutes after you have left your carriage you will have passed the
sentry at the ticket-box, received your ticket from the young woman
inside of it, given it to the official with a high hat and a big badge,
and will be within the enclosure, with your temper unruffled and your
boots immaculate. And then, when the races are over, you have only to
return to the restaurant and hand your coachman's ticket to the tall
chasseur, and let him do the rest, while you wait at a little round
table and order cooling drinks.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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