Brief Candles by Manning Coles

Author:Manning Coles
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: fiction, mystery, ghosts, fantasy
Publisher: Rare Treasure Editions
Published: 1954-04-15T05:00:00+00:00

CHAPTER XI:

The Guillotine

The older Latimers strolled into the entrance hall of their hotel after breakfast, gravitated naturally towards the desk, and began looking at picture postcards upon a revolving stand.

“Few things have impressed me more,” said James, “than the quite incredible advances which have been made in photography. Look, Charles, at this street scene. One would say that those persons crossing the road were in the act of walking, for how could the photographer persuade them to pose like that with one leg in the air? They would lose their balance. Yet they are not blurred in the smallest degree.”

“Exposures are much shorter than in our day,” said Charles. “Did Mosset, last night, fix our necks in a clamp like the pillory and expect us to keep perfectly still for more than a minute? No. It was ‘Just a moment, monsieur,’ and then click-click. Cousin, it certainly was rapid.”

“Prodigiously so,” said James, peering closely at a photograph of the west end of Notre Dame. “How clear these are! How fine the detail! See how those gargoyles gape upon one with their mouths like the Bulls of Bashan in Holy Writ.”

The manager passed by and paused to say that the picture postcards were for sale if the gentlemen desired any of them to send to their friends.

“Thank you,” said Charles, “but I think not.”

The manager passed on and James abandoned the picture postcards.

“I find it a little mopish, Cousin Charles, that we have no friends to whom to send these.”

“Why, perk up, Cousin! Let us send one to the holder of some continuing office, such as the President of the United States, though I admit with shame that I have no idea who he is.”

“Or to the Prime Minister of England,” said James, “for I do know his name, I saw it mentioned in yesterday’s newspaper. A Sir Winston Churchill. It is a good name and I doubt not that he is a most respectable person.”

But Charles had lost interest, for he had found some leaflets on the desk. “Paris by Night. Tours of some of the more famous night clubs and cabarets. Le Caveau de la Terreur. A boîte in the Bastille area, or have you seen enough of that quarter for the moment? The Bal Tabarin—even I have heard of that. James, what think you? There are several tours, shall we engage upon one? Drinks included, so says the leaflet, and at the Bal Tabarin it will be champagne.”

The desk clerk drifted into the conversation, saying that there were, indeed, several tours and that the one calling itself De Luxe was the best. All tours went to much the same places, but on the De Luxe tours one had better seats. All the tours called at the hotels to pick up their clients and to return them when the evening tour was over. He, the clerk, would be pleased to telephone for reservations if desired.

They decided upon the De Luxe tour since it included a show in the Montmartre district and omitted the Bastille area.

Download

Copyright Disclaimer:
This site does not store any files on its server. We only index and link to content provided by other sites. Please contact the content providers to delete copyright contents if any and email us, we'll remove relevant links or contents immediately.