pron hurries to your table, holding between his knuckles,
by their necks, half a dozen bottles of different aperitifs, for it is
he who fills your glass.

[Illustration: ALONG THE "BOUL' MICHE"]

It is the custom to do most of one's correspondence in these cafes. The
garcon brings you a portfolio containing note-paper, a bottle of violet
ink, an impossible pen that spatters, and a sheet of pink blotting-paper
that does not absorb. With these and your aperitif, the place is yours
as long as you choose to remain. No one will ask you to "move on" or pay
the slightest attention to you.

Should you happen to be a cannibal chief from the South Seas, and dine
in a green silk high hat and a necklace of your latest captive's teeth,
you would occasion a passing glance perhaps, but you would not be a
sensation.

[Illustration: (hotel sign)]

Celeste would say to Henriette:

"Regarde ca, Henriette! est-il drole, ce sauvage?"

And Henriette would reply quite assuringly:

"Eh bien quoi! c'est pas si extraordinaire, il est peut-etre de
Madagascar; il y en a beaucoup a Paris maintenant."

There is no phase of character, or eccentricity of dress, that Paris has
not seen.

Nor will your waiter polish off the marble top of your table, with the
hope that your ordinary sensibility will suggest another drink. It would
be beneath his professional dignity as a good garcon de cafe. The two
sous you have given him as a pourboire, he is well satisfied with, and
expresses his contentment in a "merci, monsieur, merci," the final
syllable ending in a little hiss, prolonged in proportion to his
satisfaction. After this just formality, you will find him ready to see
the point of a joke or discuss the current topics of the day. He is
intelligent, independent, very polite, but never servile.

[Illustration: (woman walking near fountain)]

It is difficult now to find a vacant chair on the long terrace. A group
of students are having a "Pernod," after a long day's work at the
atelier. They finish their absinthe and then, arm in arm, start off to
Madame Poivret's for dinner. It is cheap there; besides, the little
"boite," with its dingy room and sawdust floor, is a favorite haunt of
theirs, and the good old lady, with her credit slate, a friendly refuge
in time of need.

At your left sits a girl in bicycle bloomers, yellow-tanned shoes, and
short black socks pulled up snug to her sunburned calves. She has just
ridden in from the Bois de Bo