QUARTIER LATINITIES 35 



Angelique, as unceasing as the entreaties of the 

 worshippers of Baal for a manifestation. Appar- 

 ently, like Baal, Angelique sleeps, or is on a journey; 

 or is it that she is the object of a halting badinage 

 from the American young gentlemen in the inner 

 room ? There is a glass partition, and looking 

 through it, the eye is suddenly confronted by a hairy 

 yellow jaw, and a shirt collar which doubtless made 

 a brave show on its debut last Sunday week. Its 

 owner is eating cream cheese, with fresh cream and 

 sugar over it, in gloomy abstraction. He certainly 

 is not the humorist of the moment. Beyond his 

 Jewish nose and eyeglasses are several profiles, all 

 bent upon Angelique, who, infinitely affaired with 

 plates of fried potatoes and cauliflower, is yielding a 

 shght mechanical coquetry as the due of the jest in 

 its raucous American-French. The humorist is a 

 young gentleman who has formed himself as nearly 

 as possible on the model of the French art student, 

 by the simple device of allowing his hair to grow, 

 brushing up his moustache, and abjuring soap. He 

 is conscious of success in the character, and Angelique 

 concedes him a smile which surely singles him out 

 as one of the elect. A little more, and he will tuck 

 a napkin into his collar at meals, and wear a short 

 frock-coat with his blue velvet tam-o'-shanter. 



With the exception of the misanthrope with the 

 cream cheese, all, male and female, eat their six 

 o'clock dinner with singular cheerfulness. Drawing 

 gives an appetite, as those can vouch who have seen 

 the eyes of the class waver gauntly towards the 

 clock in the half-hour before dejeuner, and most of 

 those at the cremerie have drawn for eight hours 

 to-day. Of this no one is more intelligently aware 

 than Monsieur, and therefore does he confidently 

 present, day after day, the same mutton chop with 



