Considering The General
Scarcity Of The Article In Most Countries, These Sleeping
Accommodations Are Remarkably Ample.
Nobody need be discouraged in his
attempts at greatness in Paris, for fear at last there won't be room
to bury him.
After this we were marched to a place where our guide
made a long speech about a stone in the floor - very instructive,
doubtless, if I had known what it was: my Parisian friend said he
spoke with such a German accent she could not understand; so we humbly
took the stone _on trust,_ though it looked to the eye of sense
quite like any other.
Then we were marched into a part of the vault celebrated for its echo.
Our guide here outdid himself; first we were commanded to form a line
_en militaire_ with our backs to the wall. Well, we did form
_en militaire._ I did it in the innocence of my heart, entirely
ignorant of what was to come next. Our guide, departing from that
heroic grandeur of manner which had hitherto distinguished him,
suddenly commenced screaming and hooting in a most unparalleled style.
The echo was enough to deafen one, to be sure, and the first blast of
it made us all jump. I could think of nothing but Apollyon amusing
himself at the expense of the poor pilgrims in the valley of the
shadow of death; for the exhibition was persisted in with a
pertinacity inscrutable to any wisdom except his own. It ended by a
brace of thumps on the wall, each of which produced a report equal to
a cannon; and with this salvo of artillery the exhibition finished.
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