men in slouch hats, smoking
tobacco that would have been forbidden by public statute anywhere else.
They all treated us with a respect and consideration which we had not
observed in the Avenue de l'Opera, and I noticed the Senator visibly
expanding in it. There was also a man and a little boy, and a dog, all
lunching out of the same basket. Afterward, on being requested to do so,
the dog performed tricks--French ones--to the enjoyment and satisfaction
of all three. There was a great deal of politeness and good feeling, and
if they were not Capi and Remi and Vitalis in "_Sans Famille_," it was
merely because their circumstances were different.

As we stood looking at the Eiffel Tower, poppa said he thought if he
were in my place he wouldn't describe it. "It's old news," he said, "and
there's nothing the general public dislike so much as that. Every
hotel-porter in Chicago knows that it's three hundred metres high, and
that you can see through it all the way up. There it is, and I feel as
if I'd passed my boyhood in its shadow. That way I must say it's a
disappointment. I was expecting it to be more unexpected, if you
understand."

Momma and I quite agreed. It had the familiarity of a demonstration of
Euclid, and to the non-engineering mind was about as interesting. The
Senator felt so well acquainted with it that he hesitated about buying a
descriptive pamphlet. "They want to sell a stranger too much information
in this country," he said. "The meanest American intelligence is equal
to stepping into an elevator and stepping out again." But he bought one
nevertheless, and was particularly pleased with it, not only because it
was the cheapest thing in Paris at five cents, but because, as he said
himself, it contained an amount of enthusiasm not usually available at
any price.

The Senator thought, as we entered the elevator at the first story, that
the accommodation compared very well indeed with anything in his
experience. He had only one criticism--there was no smoking-room. We had
a slight difficulty with momma at the second story--she did not wish to
change her elevator. Inside she said she felt perfectly secure, but the
tower itself she knew _must_ waggle at that height when once you stepped
out. In the end, however, we persuaded her not to go down before she had
made the ascent, and she rose to the top with her eyes shut. When we
finally got out, however, the sight of numbers of young ladies selling
Eiffel Tower me