The Abbeville press and banner. [volume] (Abbeville, S.C.) 1869-1924, 1919-08-05

usually an old woman about with
! satchel and a pad of different colored
tickets. 1t doesn't cost anything to
sit on a gun carriage, but if you sit
in one of the iron chairs you pay a
clacker and if you select chair that
has arms on it you pay two clackers
or four sous, about four cents. l
didn't know about having to pay for
these seats until one afternoon l
passed along there and found a col
onel who had been one of my instruc-
tors over at the Army School Of the
Line at Langres and the collector
came up to US for pay for the seats.
: At first thought she was souvenir
seller and tried to shoe her away. l
felt kind of bad about it when she
explained that we were supposed to
! pay for the seats. The colonel made
a remark that while we were sitting
there that l haven't forgotten. We
were talking about how pretty the
women were and he said that he had
been thinking the matter over and
that it wasn't their beauty but their
bearing and that he'd be willing to
bet that if one of them came down
the avenue with only a sheet on she'd
look good in it. If you want to see
Champs Elysees at its best, though,
promenade there on Sunday after
noon. Usually every available seat
is taken and the walks are full. Sew
eral punch and judy shows are going
much to the amusement of the kids
and, funny too, there is. always a big
crowd of grown-ups standing outside
the ropes looking on. Another a.
musemenv for the kids is small mer-
ry-go-' round. And once / stopped
for ten minutes watching two women
feeding bread crumbs to the spar
rows. The sparrows were sitting a.
round in a circle and the women
would hold out a crumb and one of
the sparrows would fly up and take
it and the fly off a way to eat it. 1t was
amusing to watch two old pigeons
standing by looking on with apparent
disgust as they were too big to in
dulge in such fine flying.
We came to the end of the boule-
ward and turned into the Place de la
Concord and found quite a crowd
gathered in front of the Hotel Grill
lon. I asked a K. C. man what the
excitement was. He didn't know.
He had seen the crowd and stopped.
We asked lieutenant further on and
he gave the same reply. Then we
asked a couple of Midinettes and
they said that Monsieur Clemencau
was coming out of, the hotel. 1t
took me a long time to find out the
meaning of the word "midinette".
You see in French the word for
"noon" is "midi" and midinette is
applied to the working girl because
they are seldom seen except at the
noon hour when they stroll after
lunch to kill the rest of the hour.
They were laughing and talking and
having the greatest time imaginable
over nothing at all that I could see.
We asked a Peace Commission cap
tain who appeared to be on duty at
the entrance and he said that he sup
posed that they were waiting to see
the President and that he wished
we would move along and not swell
the crowd as he already had as many
as he could handle. You know you
can always tell the members of the
Peace Commission because they wear
a blue arm band with pair Of apo
thecary scales within wreath EN-
broidered in white. Every one looks
at these insignia with interest and
wonders why he drags down forty
francs a day expenses and why his
expense should be any more than any
one else who happened to be assigned
to Paris. The fellow had on a 91st
Division insignia also. When we
came over here we had all onr pack
ing boxes and field desks marked with
a bucking broncho and a cowboy
waving his hat. That was really a
good insignia but after we got over