The tapis roulant (moving sidewalk) is a very good scheme, as it takes you to every point.  As yet people are a little shy about it and will stand and stare a long time before venturing to put their feet on it.

The fetes at this time of the Exposition are overpowering.  All the Ministers are outdoing themselves.  They think nothing of inviting five hundred people to dinner and serving twenty courses.  I sat next to M. L’Epine, prefet de police, and a more restless companion I never had, although when quietly seated in his place he is a most charming one.  We had not been five minutes at the table before several telegrams were brought to him.  A riot in Montmartre, a fire in the rue St. Honore, or a duel at the Ile de Puteaux, and he was up and down, telephoning and telegraphing, until finally before the end of the dinner he disappeared entirely.  There were two concerts in different salons during the evening, one vocal and the other orchestral, each guest choosing that which he liked best.

I go every day to the Exposition.  There is always something new and interesting.  Yesterday it was a lunch with Prince Carl and Princess Ingeborg (our Crown Prince’s daughter, who married her handsome cousin of Sweden) at a restaurant called Restaurant bleu, under the shadow of the Eiffel Tower.  The Prince wished to make the acquaintance of Mr. Eiffel, and the Swedish Minister, who was present, secured the distinguished architect’s company.

He went with us to the very top of his modern tower of Babel, even to his own particular den, which is the highest point, where he alone has the right to go.  The sensation of being up in the clouds is not pleasant, and as you change from one elevator to the other and cast your eyes down the giddy space you tremble.  The view of Paris spread out under you is stupendous, but I would not go up there again for worlds.

The princely pair dined with us the same evening en toilette de ville, and we went to the rue de Paris to see Sadi-Jako.  The Japanese Minister, who sat in the box next to us, introduced her when she came in during the entr’actes to pay her respects to him.  She is very small, and has the high, shrill voice which the Japanese women cultivate.  She is the first woman who has ever acted in a Japanese theater.  Otherwise the acting has always been done by men.  Sadi’s husband performs also, and in a dreadfully realistic manner.  He stabbed himself with a sword, and with such vigor that real blood, so It looked, ran down in bucketfuls over the stage, and he groaned and writhed in his death-throes.

* * * * *

Paris would not be Paris if it did not keep us on the qui-vive.  Every kind of celebrity from everywhere is duly lionized.  Paris, never Republican at heart, still loves royalty in any shape, and at the merest specimen of it the Parisians are down on their knees.