He then led the way across still another bridge to the Left Bank, to a café in the Boulevard St. Michel or Boul' Mich' as the French call it, where we had arranged to meet Aunt Maddy. People were sitting around sipping sirops, which is what grown-ups sit and sip, mostly in French cafés, although I have seen lots of them having café filtre, which is a drink I could not recommend, being strong coffee dripped through a metal contraption until it's cold. It's not meant to be cold, of course, but it always is by the time it has dripped through. Uncle James asked us what we should like to drink, and we stuck to lemonade.
Aunt Maddy arrived in a taxi and we went for lunch to a small restaurant nearby, and we all ate such a lot that we felt far too sleepy to go to the Louvre, which was the plan for the afternoon. And much to the indignation of Clarissa, who was still mad to see those Impressionist paintings, we went to the Bois de Boulogne where we had ices in a very queer café, which had a glass wall through which we could see cows on one side and horses on the other, which everybody, except Clarissa, said was more interesting than old paintings. Little did I know how interested I should be in Impressionist paintings before our holiday was over.
From LOOKING AFTER THOMAS, Chapter 6, Bird Market. A little bit of Paris geography and French culture. This book is a lot of fun and I've just finished reading it for the second time. If you think there are a lot of mind-boggling coincidences in the Susan books, you should see this one! Two major crimes take place in Paris during the Warings' short stay, and they are unsuspecting eyewitnesses on both occasions.
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