Paris is essentially a holiday town, but I get horribly tired of too long a holiday, and after the newness is worn off one discovers that it is the superficiality of it all that palls.  The people are superficial; their amusements are feathery—­even the beauty of it all is “only skin deep.”

Therefore, after one glimpse of Poland, the pagan in my nature called me to the East, and six months of Paris have only intensified my longing to get away—­to get to something solid; to find myself once more with the serious thinkers of the world.

In the mean time Bee has deserted me for the more interesting society of Billy, and now she writes me long letters so filled with his sayings and doings that I must move on or I shall die of homesickness.  I have decided on Russia and the Nile, taking intermediate countries by the way.  This is entirely Billy’s fault.

When I first decided to go to Russia, I supposed, of course, that I could induce the Jimmies to go with me, but, to my consternation, they revolted, and gently but firmly expressed their determination to go to Egypt by way of Italy.  So I have taken a companion, and if all goes well we shall meet the Jimmies on the terrace of Shepheard’s in February.

I packed three trunks in my very best style, only to have Mrs. Jimmie regard my work with a face so full of disapproval that it reminded me of Bee’s.  She then proceeded to put “everything any mortal could possibly want” into one trunk, with what seemed to me supernatural skill and common-sense, calmly sending the other two to be stored at Munroe’s.  I don’t like to disparage Mrs. Jimmie’s idea of what I need, but it does seem to me that nearly everything I have wanted here in Berlin is “stored at Munroe’s.”

My companion and I, with faultless arithmetic, calculated our expenses and drew out what we considered “plenty of French money to get us to the German frontier.”  Then Jimmie took my companion and Mrs. Jimmie took me to the train.

Their cab got to the station first, and when we came up Jimmie was grinning, and my companion looked rather sheepish.

“I didn’t have enough money to pay the extra luggage,” she whispered.  “I had to borrow of Mr. Jimmie.”

“That’s just like you,” I said, severely.  “Now I drew more than you did.”

Just then Jimmie came up with my little account.

“Forty-nine francs extra luggage,” he announced.

“What?” I gasped, “on that one trunk?” How grateful I was at that moment for the two stored at Munroe’s!

“Oh, Jimmie,” I cried, “I haven’t got near enough!  You’ll have to lend me twenty francs!”

My companion smiled in sweet revenge, and has been almost impossible to travel with since then, but we are one in our rage against paying extra luggage.  Just think of buying your clothes once and then paying for them over and over again in every foreign country you travel through!  Our clothes will be priceless heirlooms by the time we get home.  We can never throw them away.  They will be too valuable.