The torrential rains had ceased. I advised
Rogers to take equivalent sustenance, as no lunch is provided on day of
sailing by the Compagnie Generale Transatlantique. I caught sight of him
in a dark corner of the restaurant--he is too British to eat in the
open air on the terrace, or perhaps too modest to have his meal in
my presence--struggling grimly with a beefsteak, and, as he is a
teetotaller, with an unimaginable, horrific liquid which he poured out
from a vessel vaguely resembling a teapot.
My meal over, and having nearly an hour to spare, I paid my bill, rose
and turned the corner of the quay into the Cannebiere, thinking to have
my coffee at one of the cafes in that thoroughfare of which the natives
say that, if Paris had a Cannebiere, it would be a little Marseilles. I
suppose for the Marseillais there is a magic in the sonorous name; for,
after all, it is but a commonplace street of shops running from the
quays into the heart of the town. It is also deformed by tramcars. I
strolled leisurely up, thinking of the many swans that were geese, and
Paradises that were building-plots, and heroes that were dummies, and
solidities that were shadows, in short, enjoying a gentle post-prandial
mood, when my eyes suddenly fell on a scene which brought me down from
such realities to the realm of the fantastic.
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