My Paris Author:Edward King Purchase of this book includes free trial access to www.million-books.com where you can read more than a million books for free. This is an OCR edition with typos. Excerpt from book: CHAPTER III. In The Enemy's Midst. |O there was really no help for it. How was I to manage it ? She looked at me, and I returned the gaze. It was ludi... more »crous— and I was at the beginning of quandary number two. She was an Alsatian; one of those malfaisant compounds who speak both French and German, coming as they do from the frontier of France and Germany, and, all unpracticed with dulcet accents though I was, I could understand that she lacked the rapid and equalized Parisian accent . It was all about the price of the room, because I had the feeling of location very strong in the head, and wanted before the day was over to be comfortably settled in my own room. The landlord came in—and, wonderful to relate—he could manage somewhat the English tongue ; it was therefore definitely arranged that in consideration of the guarantee of my personal effects I should keep the key of my room of the previous night, while I went hunting a home for the next six months. It was cold—but there was not even wind enough stirring to mar the beauty of the long festoons of milky white, the drapery of the snow, which hung upon the branches in the little parks, or were gracefully pendant from the shrubs in the boxes along the pavement. It was so cold that the sergent-de-ville performed his favorite gestures of shrugging his shoulders up above his ears, sending his moustache up to protect his nose, concealing his hands in the flowing sleeves of his overcoat, and knocking his neatly booted feet energetically together. The cartmen from the country, cowering on the backs of their great white horses, and covered in huge checked capes; the city workmen, hurrying to and fro with their queer comforters stuffed into the necks of their blouses, and their glazed caps pulled frantically over their brews;...« less