It was not, however, until the morning that we entered the harbor of Havre that I was able to shake off my gloom.  Then the strange sights, the chatter in an unfamiliar tongue, and the excitement of landing and passing the customs officials caused me to forget completely the events of a few days before.  Indeed, I grew so lighthearted that when I caught my first sight of the train which was to take us to Paris, I enjoyed a hearty laugh.  The toy-looking engine, the stuffy little compartment cars, with tiny, old-fashioned wheels, struck me as being extremely funny.  But before we reached Paris my respect for our train rose considerably.  I found that the “tiny” engine made remarkably fast time, and that the old-fashioned wheels ran very smoothly.  I even began to appreciate the “stuffy” cars for their privacy.  As I watched the passing scenery from the car window, it seemed too beautiful to be real.  The bright-colored houses against the green background impressed me as the work of some idealistic painter.  Before we arrived in Paris, there was awakened in my heart a love for France which continued to grow stronger, a love which to-day makes that country for me the one above all others to be desired.

We rolled into the station Saint Lazare about four o’clock in the afternoon and drove immediately to the Hotel Continental.  My benefactor, humoring my curiosity and enthusiasm, which seemed to please him very much, suggested that we take a short walk before dinner.  We stepped out of the hotel and turned to the right into the rue de Rivoli.  When the vista of the Place de la Concorde and the Champs Elysees suddenly burst on me, I could hardly credit my own eyes.  I shall attempt no such supererogatory task as a description of Paris.  I wish only to give briefly the impressions which that wonderful city made upon me.  It impressed me as the perfect and perfectly beautiful city; and even after I had been there for some time, and seen not only its avenues and palaces, but its most squalid alleys and hovels, this impression was not weakened.  Paris became for me a charmed spot, and whenever I have returned there, I have fallen under the spell, a spell which compels admiration for all of its manners and customs and justification of even its follies and sins.

We walked a short distance up the Champs Elysees and sat for a while in chairs along the sidewalk, watching the passing crowds on foot and in carriages.  It was with reluctance that I went back to the hotel for dinner.  After dinner we went to one of the summer theatres, and after the performance my friend took me to a large cafe on one of the Grands Boulevards.  Here it was that I had my first glimpse of the French life of popular literature, so different from real French life.  There were several hundred people, men and women, in the place drinking, smoking, talking, and listening to the music.  My millionaire friend and I took seats at a table, where we sat smoking and watching the crowd.  It was not long before