If it hadn’t been raining as I came out of the cinema, I should have walked home; my apartment was nearby and the route anything but complicated—straight down the boulevard, crossing two streets and turning right on the third, the Rue de Grenelle, for about half a block.
As it was, however, I hailed a taxi, and it was scarcely a moment before I realized that its driver, a ruddy-faced old man, was in the midst of an attack of perversity and nerves. “No! No!” I cried, as he started to turn up the first street, the Rue St.Dominique. “Two more blocks.” he muttered something, swung down the boulevard again, and then in a moment he was turning up the second street, the Rue Las Cases. “No! No1” I cried again. “The next one, please. The next one is mine! The Rue Grenelle!” At this he turned around and gave me a baleful stare then he spurted ahead, didn’t turn up my street at all, and continued rapidly down the boulevard as though forever. “But now you have passed it” I cried. “You should have turned to the right as I said. Please turn around, and drive up the Rue Grenelle to No.36.”
To my horror, the old man made a noise like a snarl. Spinning his car around in a U turn on the slippery pavement, he sped back, crossed the boulevard, and stopped at the corner of my street with a jerk. “Get out” he almost screamed, his face crimson with rage, “Get out of my automobile at once! I refuse absolutely to drive you any further! Three times you have treated me like an idiot. Three times you have grossly insulted me. My automobile is not for foreigners. I tell you; Get out at once.”
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