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that we hurried back down the hill and finally located the girls and told them they were missing an unforgettable sight and they'd better go back up on the ramparts because they were a bit weary, they agreed and the four of us labored back to the heights. But when we reached the top and turned to face the north and admire the display, the aurora borealis had disappeared! The The girls were griped while Charlie and I were both penitent and embarrassed. There were a lot of sailors up there from some French ships in port so we tried to substitute interest in them and the view of the full moon for the lost aurora but with scant success. We proposed night life as a palliative but without takers. The girls were tired and all they wanted to do was go to bed. So we accompanied them back to Mlle. Hudon's and called it a night. However, Charlie and I had seen the most memorable display of northern lights in the memory of either of us.
The following day, Tuesday, we set sail for the Saguenay. I think I was as thrilled over this two-day voyage as I was many years later to be embarking for a trip around the world. Nature was again very kind to us in giving us another beautiful, cool day. I believe we retained our rooms at Mlle. Hudon's since we were to be away only one night. When we were ready to depart for the wharf for the 10:20 a.m. sailing, we confidently called a cab, which appeared promptly and all seemed to be going very smoothly. However, we'd failed to anticipate the difficulty in making the cabdriver understand where we wanted to go. We first told him in English and discovered at once we had a problem although we weren't really concerned because Barbara went to school at the Sorbonne in Paris and spoke good French. Unfortunately, however, Barbara's Parisian French and the driver's Canuck French proved to be two different languages. The sequence went somewhat as follows (with apologies for [[underline]]my[[/underline]] French).
Charlie said to the driver, "Please take us to the Canadian Pacific wharf."
The driver gave him a blank look and shrugged.
"The Canadian Pacific pier on the river," said Charlie.
"Je ne comprends pas anglais," said the driver, again shrugging helplessly.
"Let me talk to him," said Barbara. "I can make him understand me."
We all brightened up at this and waited expectantly. Barbara spoke to the man with evident confidence. "Nous voudrons aller a la riviere -- Canadian Pacific," she said.
She was greeted with another utterly blank look. "Je ne comprends pas," he said.
"Se promener en bateau," she said. "Canadian Pacific." Turning to us, she said, "That means we want to go for a sail on the Canadian Pacific."
But this also failed to ring a bell and the driver shrugged again.