One never knows what a magnificent creature a poor mortal can become, nor has a realizing sense of his capacity for enjoying “things,” till he has been set loose in the streets of this alluring world’s bazar. Things! He, the traveler—or, possibly _she_—becomes possessed by a demon for which there is no other name than “things.” Things to eat, things to wear, things to hide away, things to give away, things to take home,—there is no end to it after it is once begun. People go out, meaning to buy nothing, and buy everything, until the playful remark of an American author that “Paris is a great sweating furnace, in which human beings would turn life everlasting into gold, provided it were of negotiable value,” seems not so far from true. Thankful indeed might be the traveler, Chautauquan or other, who, unable to gratify temptation, escapes it, as only it can be escaped, by filling the time so full that there are left no hours for the loitering amid lovely and alluring things. Virtuous, very virtuous, indeed, no doubt, was our quartette in this prudent regard. “Why should they care for shining and insidious vanities of to-day,” asked the student, “with historical Paris, and ecclesiastical Paris, and monumental Paris, and artistic Paris, with Paris, living and dead, past and present, lying about, in unctuous abundance, waiting to be rolled in sweet morsels under their tongues?” “Why, indeed?” echoed the other three, as on the night of arrival they went rattling in a four-seated cab, in which two lolled comfortably back and indulged in exclamations of delight over the brilliant city, blazing with its thousand lights, and gay with moving throngs, and the other two hung on the edge of the narrow shelf called a front seat, and longed for annihilation as to knees that there might be room for big basket, little basket, bundles and bags.