not generally known is that I was there myself. I appeared,--in
rivalry with Prince Luis Fernando--dressed as a Bombay soda water
bottle, with aerial opalescent streaks of light flashing from the
costume which was bound with single wire.

_IV.--A Visit to Versailles_

"WHAT!" said the man from Kansas, looking up from his asparagus, "do you
mean to say that you have never seen the Palace of Versailles?"

"No," I said very firmly, "I have not."

"Nor the fountains in the gardens?"

"No."

"Nor the battle pictures?"

"No."

"And the Hall of Mirrors,"--added the fat lady from Georgia.

"And Madame du Barry's bed"--said her husband.

"Her which," I asked, with some interest.

"Her bed."

"All right," I said, "I'll go."

I knew, of course, that I had to. Every tourist in Paris has got to go
and see Versailles. Otherwise the superiority of the others becomes
insufferable, with foreigners it is different. If they worry one about
palaces and cathedrals and such--the Chateau at Versailles, and the
Kaiserhof and the Duomo at Milan--I answer them in kind. I ask them if
they have ever seen the Schlitzerhof at Milwaukee and the Anheuserbusch
at St. Louis, and the Dammo at Niagara, and the Toboggo at Montreal.
That quiets them wonderfully.

But, as I say, I had to go.

You get to Versailles--as the best of various ways of transport--by
means of a contrivance something between a train and a street car. It
has a little puffing steam-engine and two cars--double deckers--with the
top deck open to the air and covered with a wooden roof on rods. The
lower part inside is called the first-class and a seat in it costs ten
cents extra. Otherwise nobody would care to ride in it. The engine is a
quaint little thing and wears a skirt, painted green, all around it, so
that you can just see the tips of its wheels peeping modestly out below.
It was a great relief to me to see this engine. It showed that there is
such a thing as French delicacy after all. There are so many sights
along the boulevards that bring the carmine blush to the face of the
tourist (from the twisting of his neck in trying to avoid seeing them),
that it is well to know that the French draw the line somewhere. The
sight of the bare wheels of an engine is too much for them.

The little train whirls its way out of Paris, past the great embankment
and the fortifications, and goes rocking along among green trees whose
branches sweep its sides, and trim v