The small cabs continued to tinkle slowly across the Place; a group of young fellows passed by, singing on their way to the Latin Quarter, from some fete in Montmartre--they were students going home before morning. In the distance, here and there, were a few foot passengers like himself, but to Antony it seemed that he was alone in Paris. And in the fresh beginning of a day untried and momentous, the city was like a personality. In the summer softness, in the tender, agreeable light, the welcome to him was caressing and as lovely as New York had been brutal. Antony resumed his way to the river, followed the quays where at his side the Seine ran along, reddening in the summer's sunrise. Along the river, when he crossed the Pont des Arts, he saw the stirring of Parisian life. He went on down the quays, past quaint old houses whose traditions and history he wanted to know, turned off into a dark street--la Rue Mazarine. He smiled as he read the sign. What had this narrow Parisian alley to do with him? He had adopted it out of caprice, distinguished it from all Paris. He scanned the shops and houses; many were still closed, neither milk-shops nor antiquity dealers suggested shelter. A modest sign over a dingy-looking building caught his eye. In the courtyard, in green wooden tubs, flourished two bay-trees. "Hotel of the Universe"--Hotel de l'Univers. That was hospitable enough, wide enough to take Antony Fairfax in. Behind the bay-trees a dirty, discouraged looking waiter, to whom the universe had apparently not been generous, welcomed, or at least glanced, at Fairfax. The fellow wore a frayed, colourless dress-suit; his linen was suspicious, but his head at this early hour was sleekly brushed and oiled. "No, the hotel is not yet full," he told the stranger, as though he said, "The entire universe, thank God, has not yet descended upon us." For one franc fifty a room could be had on the sixth floor. Antony yielded up his bag and bade the man show the way. CHAPTER III He could hardly wait to make his hasty toilet and set forth into the city. He saw something of it from the eave-window in his microscopic room. Chimney-pots, stained, mossy roofs, the flash of old spires, the round of a dome, the river, the bridges, all under the supernal blue of, to him, a friendly sky--he felt that he must quaff it all at a draught. But the fatigue of his lame limb began to oppress him. There was the weight of sleep on his eyelids, and he turned gratefully to the small bed under the red rep curtains. It was ridiculously small for his six feet of body, but he threw himself down thankfully and slept.