"There is no real courtesy in the streets of Paris. Men jostle women right and left, it being at the passenger's own risk that the crossing of the street is performed. "I never felt that I was a woman till I came to Paris: and there it is forced on one daily. The Parisian's view of a woman is not an ideal one." To the diner, whose purse is light and whose needs are heavy and not satisfied by the fare of the restaurant in Rue des Ours, I would suggest the restaurant which is cheek by jowl with "Grosse Horloge." There, simplicity is more fully mated to variety, for you can depend upon three _plats_, and, unless one is a slave to luxury, these _plats_, well cooked even if plain, are amply sufficient to satisfy the cravings which begin below the belt, and end--in a good square meal. By the way, many waiters in these restaurants go upon some co-operative system, and all the "tips" that they receive at restaurants are put into a common box, which is placed on the desk of the _chargé d'affaires_. As each table empties, the waiter, in passing, drops his _douceur_ through the narrow slit. My conviction is, that the workmen who are given _pourboires_ do the same thing in the way of co-operation. Over the little restaurant of which I have been speaking is the old gateway and tower of La Grosse Horloge. The bell here, called "Rouvel," dating back more than six centuries, has not been rung now for eight months, owing to its having become cracked. It weighs 1,500 kilogrammes. We went once into the belfry where the poor old bell, in its dotage, still hangs. Here in the draughty shuttered twilight, which is its constant environment, sounds unceasingly through each day and night, its mechanical heart-beats of "Teck-took"--"Teck-took"--"Teck--took," solemnly, slowly, unmelodiously. Here in the half-lights, with stray gusts of wind blowing in through the interstices of the shutters which shut in the belfry, it has rung for ages on end, the warning _couvre feu_, the solemn message of the passing hours. The only sounds which came filtering in to one's ears from the world far below are the distant shriek of the engine, and the rattle of the carriages. Below is a chamber where the weight of the clock rising and falling is the only object between a wilderness of dark timbers and the planks of the stairs. Here, at the first news of fire in the city, is sounded the fire-alarm. If the fire is at a great distance the alarm is prolonged. Right at the top of the tower is a grand view of the hills standing round about the city;--(when I was there)--brown, befogged, misty,--the broad river lying clear cut and silvery in the middle distance; while nearer in, one could see old decrepit, black-timbered houses which abutted on to the flagged courts below them, on whose surface the hail dripped whitely, and leapt merrily. Two hundred steps lead up to the top of the tower through a winding, twisting stone stairway.