Seeing France with Uncle John. Warner Anne
to come around and sit by Uncle, under the lee of the port, or whatever it is on board ship. Monsieur lugged Mrs. Clary's chair because he couldn't find a steward, and he brought it around by the smoking-room and the whole length of the deck, with the steamer pitching so that half the time he was on top of the chair, and the other half of the time the chair was on top of him. There was no one on deck but us, on account of the storm, and I thought we should die laughing, because there were forty empty chairs under shelter already. Uncle waited until, with a final slip and a slide, the poor man landed the chair, and then he screamed: "I say, Sibbilly, just take the cards out and change them another time. That's the way we Americans do."
You should have seen poor monsieur's face! Uncle said the whole affair gave him a queer feeling as to what might be in store for us in France. He said if M. Sibilet was a sample Frenchman, he thought he wouldn't get off at Havre, after all.
Mrs. Clary is in lots of trouble over the doctor. He comes up on deck and bothers her half to death, talking English. She can't understand his English, and M. Sibilet gets tired translating. M. Sibilet speaks seven languages. Uncle says that's nothing to his credit, however.
More later.
Ninth day out.
Uncle is in high spirits to-day, for he won the pool. He has been so disgusted because Mr. Edgar has won it three times. Uncle says that's no sign he'd be a good husband, though. I do think Uncle's logic is so very peculiar. He came into my state-room to-day and asked me if I didn't think the doctor was absolutely impertinent in the way he was pursuing Mrs. Clary. You'd have thought the doctor tore after her around the deck, to hear him. He said he expected to have trouble with Edna and me, but he never looked for Mrs. Clary to be a care. He said he didn't suppose she was over forty, but she ought to consider appearances more. He was quite put out, and I am gladder than ever that Lee isn't with us.
We laughed ourselves half sick to-day over Mr. Chopstone. Uncle's port-hole doesn't work very easily, and Mr. Chopstone heard him talking about it to himself as he passed in the corridor, and he went in to help him. Uncle asked Mr. Chopstone if he had a crow-bar or a monkey-wrench with him, and Mr. Chopstone didn't have a crow-bar or a monkey-wrench with him, but said why not ring for the steward. Uncle wouldn't hear to the steward, and so they climbed on the divan together and tried to pry it with Uncle's hair-brush.
The hair-brush broke, and Uncle went spinning, but Mr. Chopstone caught his cuff in the crack, and it tore, and half of his shirt-sleeve with a diamond cuff-link went to sea. At first we all felt awful about it, but he was so composed that Edna said he must be a millionaire, and Uncle said it must be a paste diamond. That is all only preliminary to the funny part. This afternoon we were lying in our chairs and Uncle was standing by the rail looking at a ship. All of a sudden he exclaimed, "Great Scott! Chopstone, if there isn't your cuff!" Mr. Chopstone made just one bound from his chair to the rail, and looked over so hard that his cap fell into the sea. Of course the mere idea of the cuff having sailed as fast as we did all day used us up completely, and Uncle in particular had to hang to the rail for support while he sort of wove back and forth in an ecstasy of speechless joy. Even M. Sibilet was overcome by mirth, although it turned out afterward that he thought the fun was on account of the lost cap. And then, when we got ourselves selves under control once more, Mr. Chopstone explained that what he had thought was that the cuff had caught somewhere on the outside of the steamer and that Uncle saw it hanging there. Edna says that it all shows that poor Mr. Chopstone is not a millionaire, and Mrs. Clary says it proves, too, that it was a real diamond.
It is beginning to seem like a pretty long trip, and Mrs. Clary has started packing her trunk. The little flag that marks our progress across the chart is making Europe in great jumps, and we are all glad. Uncle gets more restless every day, and he says if the doctor don't quit coming up on deck to talk to Mrs. Clary, something will soon drop. The doctor is really very amusing; he says the first officer has a pet "marmadillo," but we cannot see it because it is too anxious. He means "frightened," it seems. Mr. Edgar is very nice; both he and Mr. Chopstone are going to Paris. Lee will be in Paris by Wednesday, I hope, and I most sincerely trust he will keep on the right side of Uncle.
They say we will land early day after to-morrow. I can mail my letters in Plymouth to-morrow evening. Uncle says he's going express hereafter; he says no more dilly-dally voyages for him.
Tenth day out.
What do you think! Uncle took me into the parlor after dinner to-night and told me that he wasn't going to Paris with the rest. He says he didn't come abroad to scurry around like a wild rabbit, and that he's going to stop in Havre for a day or two. He says Edna and I had better stay with him, as he can't think of our traveling with Mr. Edgar and Mr. Chopstone alone. I said, "But there's Mrs. Clary." And he said, "Yes; but you forget Sibbilly." I do think Uncle's logic is so remarkable.
Eleventh day out.
Everybody is getting their trunks in from the baggage-room and running to the rail to look at ships. Uncle won the pool again to-day; he says this is one of the pleasantest trips he ever made, and he shook hands with M. Sibilet when he met him on deck this morning.
Mrs. Clary is awfully upset over our staying in Havre, and she says if Lee is in Paris he won't like it, either. We expect a mail in Plymouth.
Later.
The mail came, and I had a letter from Lee. He is going to Russia for a week, and he folded in an extra piece, saying to give Uncle the letter. It was a funny kind of letter, but of course it had to be a funny kind of letter if I was to give it to Uncle. I gave it to Uncle, and he said, "Hum!" and that was all. He says if Mr. Edgar or Mr. Chopstone stay in Havre he'll know the reason why. I do think Uncle might be more reasonable. Edna has been crying. She doesn't want to stay in Havre; she wants to go to Paris when Harry goes.
Yours with love, as ever,
Yvonne.
II
UNCLE JOHN IN ROUEN
9 a.m.
"Well, girls, are you ready to get up and out and set about improving your minds? I've been reading the guide-book and spilling my coffee with trying to do two things at once, ever since eight o'clock. But what your Uncle John doesn't know about Rouen now isn't worth stopping to look up in the index. Why, I've even got the real French twang to the pronunciation. It's Rooank; only you stop short of the 'n' and the 'k,' so to speak. The waiter who brought my breakfast showed me how to do it—said he never saw a foreigner catch on to the trick so quick before. I gave him one of those slim little quarters they have here, and he was so pleased that he taught me how to say 'Joan of Arc' for nothing. It's Shondark—Shondark. I learned it in no time. Well, come on, if you're ready. I've been waiting almost an hour.
"I declare, but this fresh, free atmosphere is refreshing! As soon as you get outside of your bedroom door you begin to get the full benefit of the Continental climate. I presume, if you're poor, you get it as soon as you get outside of your bed clothes. Rather a medieval staircase, eh? And four orange-trees at the bottom to try and fool us into feeling balmy. However, I don't mind little discomforts: all I mind is being shut up on a ship with a darned fool like that man Sibbilly. I shouldn't wonder if his mother was his wife, after all. I could believe anything of him. I didn't like him.
"We'll go to take in the cathedral first; it isn't far, and I've got it all by heart. Thirteenth century and unsymmetrical—you must remember that. There, that's it ahead there—with the scaffolding. They're bolstering it up somewhat, so as to keep on hooking tourists, I presume. The biggest tower is the Butter Tower, built out of paid-for permissions to eat butter in Lent. Rather a rough joke, its being so much the biggest, isn't it? The whole cathedral's lopsided from eating butter, so to speak. I believe it's the thing to stop in front and act as if you were overcome;