Wherever that prowling young man formed his prowling habits I cannot be
expected to know, but the way in which he went round the corner while we
had our breakfasts and was there again when we swallowed the last crumb
was most marvellous, and just the same at dinner and at night, prowling
equally at the theatre and the inn gateway and the shop doors when we
bought a trifle or two and everywhere else but troubled with a tendency
to spit. And of Paris I can tell you no more my dear than that it's town
and country both in one, and carved stone and long streets of high houses
and gardens and fountains and statues and trees and gold, and immensely
big soldiers and immensely little soldiers and the pleasantest nurses
with the whitest caps a playing at skipping-rope with the bunchiest
babies in the flattest caps, and clean table-cloths spread everywhere for
dinner and people sitting out of doors smoking and sipping all day long
and little plays being acted in the open air for little people and every
shop a complete and elegant room, and everybody seeming to play at
everything in this world. And as to the sparkling lights my dear after
dark, glittering high up and low down and on before and on behind and all
round, and the crowd of theatres and the crowd of people and the crowd of
all sorts, it's pure enchantment. And pretty well the only thing that
grated on me was that whether you pay your fare at the railway or whether
you change your money at a money-dealer's or whether you take your ticket
at the theatre, the lady or gentleman is caged up (I suppose by
government) behind the strongest iron bars having more of a Zoological
appearance than a free country.

Well to be sure when I did after all get my precious bones to bed that
night, and my Young Rogue came in to kiss me and asks "What do you think
of this lovely lovely Paris, Gran?" I says "Jemmy I feel as if it was
beautiful fireworks being let off in my head." And very cool and
refreshing the pleasant country was next day when we went on to look