Colors there were none, lovers there were none, Parisian joy of living there was not one vestige.
Paris! The murmur crept through the train, stirring the weariest to mechanical action.

Paris! Heads were thrust through the windows, wraps and hand-bags passed out to the shadowy, mysterious porters who received them in a silence born of the godless hour and the penetrating, chilling dampness of the atmosphere.
In the carriage fifth or sixth from the engine the three fellow-travellers greeted the arrival in the orthodox way.

The tall American stretched his long limbs and groaned wearily as he got his belongings together, while the dapper young Englishman thrust his head out of the window and withdrew it as rapidly.
"Beastly morning!" he announced.

"Paris on a wet day is like a woman with draggled skirts." "Get rid of our belongings first, Billy, make epigrams after!" The man called Blake pushed him quietly aside and, stepping to the window, dropped a leather bag into the hands of a porter.
Of the three, his manner was the most indifferent, his temper the most unruffled; and of the three, he alone remembered the fourth occupant of the carriage, for, being relieved of his bag, he turned with his hand still upon the window, and his eyes sought the youthful figure drawn with lonely isolation into its corner.
"Do you want a porter ?" he asked.
The question was unexpected.

The boy started and sat straighter in his seat.