u must sigh like a horse down with the colic. So--o!
that's right. Thus I go, drilling myself in hypocrisy; stamp
impatiently in the street when I fail to succeed; rail at myself for
being such a blockhead, whilst the astonished passers-by turn round and
stare at me.

I chewed uninterruptedly at my shaving, and proceeded, as steadily as I
could, along the street. Before I realized it, I was at the railway
square. The dock on Our Saviour's pointed to half-past one. I stood for
a bit and considered. A faint sweat forced itself out on my face, and
trickled down my eyelids. Accompany me down to the bridge, said I to
myself--that is to say, if you have spare time!--and I made a bow to
myself, and turned towards the railway bridge near the wharf.

The ships lay there, and the sea rocked in the sunshine. There was
bustle and movement everywhere, shrieking steam-whistles, quay porters
with cases on their shoulders, lively "shanties" coming from the prams.
An old woman, a vendor of cakes, sits near me, and bends her brown nose
down over her wares. The little table before her is sinfully full of
nice things, and I turn away with distaste. She is filling the whole
quay with her smell of cakes--phew! up with the windows!

I accosted a gentleman sitting at my side, and represented forcibly to
him the nuisance of having cake-sellers here, cake-sellers there....
Eh? Yes; but he must really admit that.... But the good man smelt a
rat, and did not give me time to finish speaking, for he got up and
left. I rose, too, and followed him, firmly determined to convince him
of his mistake.

"If it was only out of consideration for sanitary conditions," said I;
and I slapped him on the shoulders.

"Excuse me, I am a stranger here, and know nothing of the sanitary
conditions," he replied, and stared at me with positive fear.

Oh, that alters the case! if he was a stranger.... Could I not render
him a service in any way? show him about? Really not? because it would
be a pleasure to me, and it would cost him nothing....

But the man wanted absolutely to get rid of me, and he sheered off, in
all haste, to the other side of the street.

I returned to the bench and sat down. I was fearfully disturbed, and
the big street organ that had begun to grind a tune a little farther
away made me still worse--a regular metallic music, a fragment of
Weber, to which a little girl is singing a mournful strain. The
flute-like sorrowfulness of the organ thr