THE MILD SWASH.
What a Frenchman satisfies his appetite with for drink is
THE COCO SELLER.
something astonishing. The middle-aged man in America who would deliberately ask for the root-beer of his youth would be laughed at as a milk-sop. In America even the lemonade drinker is not looked upon with favor, although that is admissible.
But in Paris you shall see a sturdy man walking the streets with an immense can upon his back with cups attached, and men of all ages stop him. He draws from the can a cup full of a liquid. He drinks it and pays for it. What do you suppose this liquid is? Merely a decoction of herbs and Spanish licorice, and coco, as harmless as mother’s milk, and a great deal more insipid. Of mother’s milk I cannot speak, for it is a long time since I have tasted it. I wish to heaven that the gap between the present and the mother’s milk period were less. But the Frenchman patronizes the coco seller, and his Chinese pagoda arrangement is always well patronized.