CHAPTER XVI

A FALSE ALARM

Every time I visit Paris, which, unhappily, is too often, it rains in
torrents. It makes no difference whether I change the time of starting
from that which I had fixed upon at first, stop on the way, travel at
night, resort, in short, to a thousand devices to deceive the barometer-
at ten leagues from Paris the clouds begin to pile up and I get out of
the train amidst a general deluge.

On the occasion of my last visit I found myself as usual in the street,
followed by a street porter carrying my luggage and addressing despairing
signals to all the cabs trotting quickly past amid the driving rain.
After ten minutes of futile efforts a driver, more sensible than the
others, and hidden in his triple cape, checks his horses. With a single
bound I am beside the cab, and opening, the door with a kind of frenzy,
jump in.

Unfortunately, while I am accomplishing all this on one side, a
gentleman, similarly circumstanced, opens the other door and also jumps
in. It is easy to understand that there ensues a collision.

"Devil take you!" said my rival, apparently inclined to push still
farther forward.