the canning factory, and Hugo Jennings, night clerk of the Occidental
Hotel, was now prominent lights of the good old Latin Quarter passing
their spare moments there where they could get away from it all, instead
of shaking dice at the Owl cigar store, like they used to. And Oswald
Cummings of the Elite Bootery, was another. Oswald is a big fair-haired
lummox that sings tenor in the Presbyterian choir and has the young men's
Bible class in the Sabbath School. Vernabelle lost no time in telling
him that he was oh, so frankly a pagan creature, born for splendid sins;
and Otto seemed to believe it for a couple of weeks, going round absent
like as if trying to think up some sins that would be splendid, though
if any one but a Bohemian had told him this he'd have blushed himself to
death. It shows you what a hold Vernabelle was by way of getting on Red
Gap.

It was sure one season of triumph for Metta Bigler, who lurked proudly
in the background as manager. Metta's mother wasn't near so thrilled as
Metta, though. She confided to me that Bohemians was a messy lot to clean
up after, raining cigarette ashes over everything; and also it was pretty
hard to have raised a child to Metta's age only to see her become a
cigarette fiend overnight, and having these mad revels with currant
wine and other intoxicants--and Metta was even using a lip stick!

And Metta's mother wasn't the only one in town looking sidewise at these
Bohemian doings. There was them that held aloof from the beginning and
would give their bitter reasons at every opportunity. These was the
ultra-conservative element of the North Side set, and what they said
about the new Latin Quarter was a plenty. They said it was mostly an
excuse for drunken orgies in which all sense of decency was cast aside,
to say nothing of cigarettes being brazenly smoked by so-called ladies.
They said this here talk about getting away from it all meant the ruin
of the home upon which all durable civilization must be built; and as
for wives and mothers going round without their stockings look at what
befell proud Rome! And it was time something was done to stem this tide
of corruption.

Mrs. Cora Wales and Mrs. Tracy Bangs, president and vice-president of our
anti-tobacco league, was the leaders of this movement and sent in a long
complaint to the chamber of commerce urging instant action or a foul blot
would be splashed on the fair name of our city, to say nothing of homes
being broken u