Authors -- Fiction; Human-alien encounters -- Fiction; Martians -- Fiction; Paris (France) -- Fiction; Young men -- Fiction
Then we went to breakfast with my lady and Daphne, their charming
little daughter--Barty's sister, as he called her--"m'amour"--and
who spoke both French and English equally well.
But we didn't breakfast at once, ravenous as we boys were, for Lady
Archibald took a sudden dislike to Lord A.'s cravat, which, it
seems, he had never worn before. It was in brown satin, and Lady A.
declared that Loulou (so she called him) never looked "_en beauté_"
with a brown cravat; and there was quite a little quarrel between
husband and wife on the subject--so that he had to go back to his
dressing-room and put on a blue one.
At breakfast he talked about French soldiers of the line, and their
marching kit (as it would be called now), quite earnestly, and, as
it seemed to me, very sensibly--though he went through little
mimicries that made his wife scream with laughter, and me too; and
in the middle of breakfast Barty sang "Le Chant du Départ" as well
as he could for laughing:
"La victoire en chantant nous ouvre la carrière!
La liberté-é gui-i-de nos pas" ...
while Lord A. went through an expressive pantomime of an overladen
foot-soldier up and down the room, in time to the music. The only
person who didn't laugh was James--which I thought ungenial.
Then Lady A. had _her_ innings, and sang "Rule Britannia, Britannia
rule de vaves"--and declared it was far more ridiculous really than
the "Chant du Départ," and she made it seem so, for she went through
a pantomime too. She was a most delightful person, and spoke English
quite well when she chose; and seemed as fond of Barty as if he were
her own and only son--and so did Lord Archibald. She would say:
"Quel dommage qu'on ne peut pas avoir des crompettes [crumpets]!
Barty les aime tant! n'est-ce pas, mon chou, tu aimes bien les
crompettes? voici venir du buttered toast--c'est toujours ça!"
And, "Mon Dieu, comme il a bonne mine, ce cher Barty--n'est-ce pas,
mon amour, que tu as bonne mine? regarde-toi dans la glace."
And, "Si nous allions à l'Hippodrôme cette après-midi voir la belle
écuyère Madame Richard? Barty adore les jolies femmes, comme son
oncle! n'est-ce pas, méchant petit Barty, que tu adores les jolies
femmes? et tu n'as jamais vu Madame Richard? Tu m'en diras des
nouvelles! et vous, mon ami [this to me], est-ce que vous adorez
aussi les jolies femmes?"
"Ô oui," says Daphne, "allons voir M'ame Richard; it'll be _such_
fun! oh, bully!"
So after breakfast we went for a walk, and to a café on the Quai
d'Orsay, and then to the Hippodrôme, and saw the beautiful écuyère
in graceful feats of la haute école, and lost our hearts--especially
Lord Archibald, though him she knew; for she kissed her hand to him,
and he his to her.
Then we dined at the Palais Royal, and afterwards went to the Café
des Aveugles, an underground coffee-house near the Café de la
Rotonde, and where blind men made instrumental music; and we had a
capital evening.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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