“That is not a satisfactory answer.” “I’m sorry.” “What is your real business in France?” “To write.” “I’m afraid we’ll have to keep your passport. You will appear to-morrow morning at nine o’clock at this address.” And they handed me a scary-looking card. On the deck I met our congressman and told him my troubles. “I know these fellows very well,” he said. “If you like, I can fix it for you.” “No,” I replied proudly. “I’d rather do my own fixing.” At the dock I got into a taxi and asked to be taken to the ---- Hotel. Not to my dying day will I forget that first ride in a French taxi. Part of the time we were on the right side of the street, part of the time on the left, and never once were we traveling under a hundred and fifty miles an hour. We turned twenty corners and always on one ear. We grazed dozens of frightened pedestrians, many of them men crippled in the war, or by taxis, and women too old to dodge quickly. We aimed at a score of rickety horse-drawn vehicles, but our control was bad and we bumped only one. In front of the hostelry we stopped with a jerk. “Comme beaucoup?” I asked the assassin. “Un franc cinquante,” he said. Only thirty cents, and I thought I knew why. When they get through a trip without killing any one, they feel they have not done themselves justice nor given you a square deal. I found myself a seat at a sidewalk table and ordered sustenance. The vial they brought it in was labeled “Bière Ritten,” but I suspect the adjective was misspelled. Till darkness fell I watched the passing show--street-cars with lady motormen and conductors; hundreds of old carts driven by old women, each cart acting as a traveling roof for an old dog; wounded soldiers walking or hobbling along, some of them accompanied by sad-faced girls; an appalling number of women in black; a lesser number of gayly garbed and extremely cordial ones, and whole flocks of mad taxis, seeking whom they might devour. By using great caution at the street crossings, I succeeded in reaching the telegraph office where I wrote a message informing Paris friends of my arrival. I presented it to the lady in the cage, who handed it back with the advice that it must be rewritten in French. I turned away discouraged and was starting out again into the gloom when I beheld at a desk the songbird of the ship. Would she be kind enough to do my translating? She would. The clerk approved the new document, and asked for my passport. I told her it had been taken away. She was deeply grieved, then, but without it monsieur could send no message. Bonne nuit! Back at the hotel I encountered the Yankee vice-consul, a gentleman from Bedford, Indiana. I told him my sad plight, and he said if matters got too serious his office would undertake to help. With his assurances to comfort me, I have retired to my room to write, to my room as big as Texas and furnished with all the modern inconveniences. _Saturday, August 18. Paris._