PUNCH, OR THE LONDON CHARIVARI Volume 107, September 22, 1894 _edited by Sir Francis Burnand_ IN PARIS OUT OF THE SEASON. (_With some Notes on a Detective Melodrama at the Ambigu._) DEAR MR. PUNCH,--When I announced my intention of running over to Paris for a few days, my friend BUZZARD looked at me with a stony contempt. "To Paris?" he said, "at this time of year! Why, you must be mad. What on earth are you going to do there?" I tried to explain to BUZZARD, whose frigid superiority frightens me, that I liked Paris, that I was going there _pour me dégourdir_; that it was just as possible to breakfast at LEDOYEN'S or VOISIN'S, and to dine at DURAND'S or JOSEPH'S in September as at any other time; that a few theatres were still open; that the Boulevards were there for the _flâneur_; but I failed to penetrate his scorn, even with the most idiomatic French at my command. However, I determined that BUZZARD, like the weight of the elephant in the problem, must be neglected; and here I am in the Rue de Rivoli with another madman like unto myself. We take our _café complet_ in bed; we wear beautiful French ties, made of _foulard_, with two vast ends floating like banners in the Parisian breeze--in a word, we are thoroughly enjoying ourselves in an entirely non-British fashion--which I take, indeed, to be of the essence of a pleasant holiday. What care we for the echoes of the Trades Union Congress; for the windiest of KEIR HARDIE'S blatancies; for the malignities of Mr. CHAMBERLAIN, or the failure of Lord ROSEBERY'S _Ladas_ at Doncaster? We are in Paris, and the sight of a _cuirassier_ trotting past with his great black _crinière_ waving behind, or of the lady bicyclists scudding by in knickerbockers, excites us more than even the latest ravings of the newest woman in London. BUZZARD be blowed! You may tell him I said so. [Illustration] I want to let Mr. CONAN DOYLE know that there is a great opening for him here. If I may judge by the latest detective drama, the ideas of the Parisian public with regard to the acumen and general power of a detective are still very primitive. Yet GABORIAU did something in this line, and, in the _Vicomte de Bragelonne_, did not _d'Artagnan_ show himself on the occasion of a certain duel to be a detective of unmatchable force? Still the fact remains that the play-going Parisian public is easily satisfied in the matter of detectives. Listen, if you doubt me, to a plain unvarnished account of "_La Belle Limonadière_," the "_Grand drame nouveau en cinq actes, huit tableaux_," which is now running gloomily, but with immense success, at the _Ambigu_.