* * * * *

We have had the heavy-eyed Krueger straight from the Transvaal.  Paris made a great fuss over him, but he took his lionization very calmly.  At the Opera people cheered and waved their handkerchiefs.  He came forward to the edge of the ioge, bowed stiffly, and looked intensely bored.  The protocole furnishes the same program for each lion.  A dinner at the Elysees, a promenade, a gala opera, et voila.

Fritjof Nansen, the blond and gentle Norwegian explorer, has just finished his visit here.  As a Scandinavian friend he came for a cup of tea and made himself most agreeable, and was, unlike other celebrities, willing to be drawn out.  He told us of some of his most exciting adventures.  Starvation and exposure of all sorts belong to explorers.

No one would think, to look at the mild and blue-eyed Nansen, that he had gone through so many harrowing experiences.

“The worst were,” he said, “losing my dogs.  I loved them all.  To see them die from want of food and other sufferings broke my heart.”

I am sure that what he said was true, he looked so kind and good.

Among other personages of distinction Paris greets is the Shah of Persia.  The Elysees gave him the traditional gala dinner, to which the diplomats were invited.  The ballroom was arranged as a winter-garden, with a stage put at the end of it.  The ballet from the Opera danced and played an exquisite pantomime, but the august guest sat sullen and morose, hardly lifting his Oriental eyes.  People were brought up to him to be introduced, but he did not condescend to favor them with more than a guttural muttering—­probably his private opinion, meant only for his suite.  He merely glanced at us and looked away, as if too much bored for words.  M. Loubet stood on one side, and Madame Loubet sat in a fauteuil next to him, but he had nothing to say to either of them.  The government had put Dr. Evans’s beautiful and perfect villa in the Bois at his disposition.  The persons belonging to the house say that it is swimming in dirt, and they never expect to get it clean again.  The suite appear to have no other amusements than driving about the streets from morning to night.  The Elysees must have a hundred carriages in use for them.  Last evening there was a gala performance at the Grand Opera for the blase Shah.  They gave “Copelia,” with the lovely Mauri as prima ballerina.  The audience made no demonstration, although it ought to have shown a certain amount of Te Deumness, on account of the Shah’s escape from an attempt on his life.  He was miraculously saved, and will go on living his emotionless life for ever and ever.  May Allah protect him ... from us!

Speaking of Orientals, the Chinese Minister has taken a very large apartment in the Avenue Hoche.  Evidently they expect to entertain on a large scale.  The wife is called lady, but he is not called lord; the two pretty daughters look more European than Chinese, having pink-and-white complexions.