d or thought I needed, smiled more than
any of them, and, having heard my story, said that that was certainly
the place to obtain leave. But it was unwise and even impossible to go
by any other way than road, as the railway was needed for soldiers and
munitions of war, and therefore I must bring my chauffeur with me, with
his papers, which must be examined and passed.

My chauffeur? I possessed no such thing. Necessary then to provide
myself with a chauffeur at once. Out I went in a fusillade of courtesies
and sought a chauffeur. I visited a taxi rank and stopped this man and
that, but all shied at the distance. At last one said that his garage
would provide me with a car. So off to the garage we went, and there I
had an interview with a manager, who declined to believe that permission
for the expedition would be made at all, except possibly to oblige a
person of great importance. Was I a person of great importance? he asked
me. Was I? I wondered. No, I thought not. Very well then, he considered
it best to drop the project.

I came away and hailed another taxi, driven by a shaggy grey hearthrug.
I told him my difficulties, and he at once offered to drive me anywhere
and made no bones about the distance whatever. So it was arranged that
he should come for me on the morrow--say Tuesday, at a quarter to
eleven, and we would then get through the preliminaries and my lunch
comfortably by noon and be off and away. So do hearthrugs talk with
foreigners--light-heartedly and confident. But Heaven disposes. For when
we reached the Bureau at a minute after eleven the next morning the
smiling janitor told us we were too late. Too late at eleven? Yes, the
office in question was closed between eleven and two; we must return at
two.

"But the day will be over," I said; "the light will have gone. Another
day lost!" Nothing on earth can crystallize and solidify so swiftly and
implacably as the French official face. At these words his smile
vanished. He was not angry or threatening--merely granite. Those were
the rules, and how could anyone question them? At two, he repeated: and
again I left the building, this time not bowing quite so effusively, but
suppressing a thousand criticisms which might have been spoken were not
the French our allies.

Three hours to kill in a city where everything is shut. No Louvre, no
Carnavalet! However, the time went, chiefly over lunch, and at two we
were there again, the hearthrug and I, and were sho