of playthings to the station. Paris was gay and crowded, making up for
its four years of gravity, and the conscienceless taxi drivers were
having pretty much their own way, refusing all that were going in a
direction that did not suit their convenience, and extorting enormous
_pour boire_. I stood on the edge of the mad stream of vehicles that
pressed by on the boulevard, and watched for an empty taxi. One came,
the old reprobate who drove it casting his practiced eye about for a
likely looking customer. He deigned to notice me, recognizing me for an
American, and well knowing our national childish impatience, and its
lucrative consequences. He drove up to the curb.

"Where to?" he asked defiantly, blinking his bleary eyes, his red
alcoholic face set in insolent lines.

"_La Gare du Nord._"

He reflected an instant. "Bon," he decided. I got in, resolving to take
possession before breaking all the news to him.

"First I must stop at the _Grand Bazaar_ to call for a box," I said in
a most matter-of-fact way.

"Ah ça! non! It can't be done!" he exclaimed in a fury. "How do you
expect me to earn my living if I have to go out of my way and wait a
century outside a store?"

"I will pay you for your time."

Still he refused to move. "Déscendez, déscendez!" he cried in an ugly
voice. I knew the next one would be just as bad, and besides I had no