Honorary Parisian


It was October and I had crossed Dover-Boulogne on the Channel ferry, standing on deck in the wind and wet of a passage so rough the captain said he should not have gone out, but the blue sky and bright sun had fooled him. In Paris I came down with a drowning cold and took to bed where the feverish idea struck that a gringo cheeseburger and french fries would cure me, so I pulled on my still damp and saltstained raincoat and dragged my rumpled self across the river to the Marais. I was moving slow, looking and feeling very much the worse for wear with my red running nose when a lady drunk whose nose and raincoat were equal to mine stepped up to me and asked, "Vous êtes du quartier?"