The coaches were not there when we arrived, and presently the Senator discovered why.  He told us with a slightly depressed air that they had gone round to the hotels.  “Daughter,” he said to me, “J.P.  Wicks does hate to make a fool of himself, and this morning he’s done it twice over.  The best seats will go to the people who had the sense to stay at their hotels, and the fact that the coaches go round shows that they run for tourist traffic only.  There won’t be a Paris aristocrat among them,” continued poppa gloomily, “nary an aristocrat.”

When they came up we saw that there wasn’t.  The coaches were full of tourist traffic.  It was mounted on the box seats very high up, where it looked conspicuously happy, and sounded a little hysterical; and it was packed, tight and warm and anticipant into every available seat.  From its point of vantage, secured by waiting at the hotel for it, the tourist traffic looked down upon the Wick family on the pavement, in irritating compassion.  As momma said, if we hadn’t taken our tickets it was enough to have sent us to the Bon Marche.

A man in a black frock coat and white shirt cuffs came bareheaded from the office and pointed us out to the interpreter, who wore brass buttons.  The interpreter appeared to mention it to the guide, who wiped his perspiring brows under a soft brown felt hat.  A fiacre crawled round the corner and paused to look on, and the Senator said, “Now which of you three gentlemen is responsible for my ride to Versailles?”

The interpreter looked at him with a hostile expression, the guide made a gesture of despair at the volume of tourist traffic, and the man with the shirt cuffs said, “You ’ave took your plazes on ze previous day?”

“I took them from you ten minutes ago,” poppa replied.  “What a memory you’ve got!”

“Zen zare is nothings guaranteed.  But we will send special carriage, and be’ind you can follow up,” and he indicated the fiacre which had now drawn into line.

“I don’t think so,” said poppa, “when I buy four-in-hand tickets I don’t take one-in-hand accommodation.”

“You will not go in ze private carriage?”

“I will not.”

“Mais—­it is much ze preferable.”

“I don’t know why I should contradict you,” said poppa, but at that moment the difficulty was solved by the Misses Bingham.

“Guide!” cried one of the Misses Bingham, beckoning with her fan, “Nous voulons a descendre!”

“You want get out?”

“Oui!” replied the Misses Bingham with simultaneous dignity, and, as the guide merely wiped his forehead again, poppa stepped forward.  “Can I assist you?” he said, and the Misses Bingham allowed themselves to be assisted.  They were small ladies, dressed in black pongee silk, with sloping shoulders, and they each carried a black fan and a brocaded bag for odds and ends.  They were not plain-looking, and yet it was readily seen why nobody had ever married them; they had that look of the predestined single state that you sometimes see even among the very well preserved.  One of them had an eye-glass, but it was easy to note even when she was not wearing it that she was a person of independent income, of family, and of New York.