the
evil day with attending results to the "chattel" subject to the baneful
caprice of unrestrained liberty.

On the 23d of January, 1898, I was taking my leave of Paris to meet my
steamer at Marseilles for a 20-day voyage for Madagascar. My stay at
the hotel had been pleasant, and I supposed had received all necessary
attention from the servants that occasion demanded; but in character it
had been individual. Now it was united, for in doorway and on staircase
they were (like Tennyson's cannon) servants "to the right of me and
servants to the left of me," smiling and gracious. One, of whom I had no
recollection of having previously seen, approached me with an obeisance
decidedly French to remind me that he was the "baggage man" and attended
to it when I arrived. I replied, "You are not the man who took up my
baggage." "No," he said; "I am the man who looked after the man who
watched the man who did take it up." "Oh!" I said; and then remembering
that he and I had much in common, his English and my French being twins,
I conceded his claim, "tipped" others that impeded my exit, and made
hasty retreat.

Leaving Paris at 2:30 P. M., at 2 in the morning we reached Lyons,
stopping 25 minutes for coffee and refreshments, which reached a
long-felt want, arriving at Hotel de Louvre et de la Paix, at
Marseilles, three hours later. Paris is prolific in names of its hotels,
but this was commensurate in luxury and first class in every particular,
very large, the finest in Marseilles and said to be unsurpassed in
France. It is approached by a hall-way fifty feet long from Rue
Canebrian (the street), which leads you into an oval-shaped court 100
by 200 feet. Around this court in niches are finely-sculptured statuary,
paintings and choice flowers in porcelain vases. Out of this court you
are conducted into the hotel proper. Spacious stairways of Italian
marble, the tread of which covered with Turkish carpets, leads you to
the interior. The court in the inner center of the hotel rises to a
height of five or six stories, and is covered by parti-colored glass,
which emits a soft and pleasing tint on all below. The dining room was
"a thing of beauty," and the menu "a joy forever." The adornments of the
room would well befit a palace. Oh, that I had the tongue of an orator
or the pen of a ready writer, to fitly describe! Took breakfast and then
a stroll along the principal streets of the city and the wharves of the
Mediterranean. The city