ress of a friend who
lives in the Village--they never misunderstand the situation, their
hostess nor the atmosphere for a moment. No one misunderstands the
charming, picturesque _camaraderie_ of the Village--unless they have
been reading Village novelists, that breed held in contempt by Harry
Kemp and all the Greenwichers. Anyone who goes there with an open mind
will carry it away filled with nothing but good things--save sometimes
perhaps a little envy.

And, by the bye, that habit of calling at strange places to locate
people is emphatically a Village custom. Or rather, perhaps, it should
be put the other way: the habit of giving some "shop" or eating place
instead of a regular address is most prevalent among Villagers. A
Villager is seldom in his own quarters unless he has a shop of his
own. But if he really "belongs" he is known to hundreds of other
people, and the enquiring caller will be passed along from one place
to another, until, in time, he will be almost certain to locate his
nomadic friend.

"Billy Robinson? Why, yes, of course, we know him. No, he hasn't been
in tonight. But you try some of the other places that he goes to. He's
very apt to drop in at the 'Klicket' during the evening. Or if he
isn't there try 'The Mad Hatter's,'--'Down the Rabbit Hole' you
know;--or let's see--he'll be sure to show up at the Club some time
before midnight. If you don't find him come back here; maybe he'll
drop in later, or else someone will who has seen him."

Of course, he is found eventually,--usually quite soon, for the
Village is a small place, and a true Village in its neighbourliness
and its readiness to pass a message along.

Really, there is nothing quainter about it than this intimate and
casual quality, such as is known in genuine, small country towns.
Fancy a part of New York City--Gotham, the cold, the selfish, the
unneighbourly, the indifferent--in which everyone knows everyone else
and takes a personal interest in them too; where distances are slight
and pleasant, where young men in loose shirts with rolled-up sleeves,
or girls hatless and in working smocks stroll across Sixth Avenue from
one square to another with as little self-consciousness as though they
were meandering down Main Street to a game of tennis or the village
store! Sixth Avenue, indeed, has come to mean nothing more to them
than a rustic bridge or a barbed-wire fence,--something to be gotten
over speedily and forgotten. They even, by som