“Two dollars and a half a day!” momma ejaculated.  “Were there no more expensive ones?”

“If there had been,” poppa confessed, “I would have taken them.  But these were the best they had.  And I understand it’s a popular, sensible way of travelling.  I told the young man that the one thing we wished to avoid was ostentation, and he said that these coupons would be a complete protection.”

“There must be some way of paying more,” said momma pathetically, looking at the paper books of tickets, held together by a quantity of little holes.  “Do they actually include everything?”

“Even wine, I understand, where it is the custom of the hotel to provide it without extra charge, and in Switzerland honey with your breakfast,” the Senator responded firmly.  “I never made a more interesting purchase.  There before us lie our beds, breakfasts, luncheons, dinners, lights, and attendance for the next six weeks.”

“It is full of the most dramatic possibilities,” I remarked, looking at the packet.

“It seems to me a kind of attempt to coerce Providence,” said momma, “as much as to say, ’Whatever happens to the world, I am determined to have my bed, breakfast, luncheon, dinner, lights, and attendance for six weeks to come.’  Is it not presumptuous?”

“It’s very reasonable,” said the Senator, “and that’s the principal thing you’ve got against it, Augusta.  It’s remarkably, pictorially cheap.”  The Senator put the little books in their detachable cover, snapped the elastic round them and restored the whole to his inside pocket.

“You might almost say enjoyably cheap, if you know what I mean.  The inexpensiveness of Europe,” he continued, “is going to be a great charm for me.  I intend to revel in it.”

I am always discovering points about poppa the existence of which I had not suspected.  His appreciation of the joy of small prices had been concealed in him up to this date, and I congratulated him warmly upon its appearance.  I believe it is inherent in primitive tribes and in all Englishmen, but protective tariffs and other influences are rapidly eradicating it in Americans, who should be condoled with on this point, more than they usually are.

We were on our way to Paris after a miraculous escape of the Channel.  So calm it was that we had almost held our breaths in our anxiety lest the wind should rise before we got over.  Dieppe lay behind us, and momma at the window declared that she could hardly believe she was looking out at Normandy.  Momma at the window was enjoying herself immensely in the midst of Liberty silk travelling cushions, supported by her smelling-bottle, and engaged apparently in the realisation of long-cherished dreams.

“There they are in a row!” she exclaimed.  “How lovely to see them standing up in that stiff, unnatural way just as they do in the pictures.”

Poppa and I rushed raptly to the window, but discovered nothing remarkable.