imagine myself an ardent tourist from the eighteenth century.
Intolerable was the strain of the slow-passing and empty
minutes. Long before seven o'clock I was back at the
Vingtieme.

I sat there just where I had sat for luncheon. Air came in
listlessly through the open door behind me. Now and again
Rose or Berthe appeared for a moment. I had told them I would
not order any dinner till Mr. Soames came. A hurdy-gurdy
began to play, abruptly drowning the noise of a quarrel between
some Frenchmen further up the street. Whenever the tune was
changed I heard the quarrel still raging. I had bought another
evening paper on my way. I unfolded it. My eyes gazed ever
away from it to the clock over the kitchen door....

Five minutes, now, to the hour! I remembered that clocks in
restaurants are kept five minutes fast. I concentrated my eyes
on the paper. I vowed I would not look away from it again. I
held it upright, at its full width, close to my face, so that I had
no view of anything but it.... Rather a tremulous sheet? Only
because of the draught, I told myself.

My arms gradually became stiff; they ached; but I could not
drop them--now. I had a suspicion, I had a certainty. Well,
what then?... What else had I come for? Yet I held tight that
barrier of newspaper. Only the sound of Berthe's brisk footstep
from the kitchen enabled me, forced me, to drop it, and to utter:

`What shall we have to eat, Soames?'