He finally had it taken up, and then he put it down himself and got it right.
At this stage of the proceedings, a narrow bright red carpet was unrolled and stretched from the top of the marble steps to the curbstone, along the center of the black carpet.

This red path cost the PORTIER more trouble than even the black one had done.

But he patiently fixed and refixed it until it was exactly right and lay precisely in the middle of the black carpet.

In New York these performances would have gathered a mighty crowd of curious and intensely interested spectators; but here it only captured an audience of half a dozen little boys who stood in a row across the pavement, some with their school-knapsacks on their backs and their hands in their pockets, others with arms full of bundles, and all absorbed in the show.

Occasionally one of them skipped irreverently over the carpet and took up a position on the other side.
This always visibly annoyed the PORTIER.
Now came a waiting interval.