“Here! Hold on!” thundered good-humoredly the man from Denver; “git ’em a good drink. Rye, garsong! yes, that’s it—whiskey—I see you’re on, and two. Deux!” he explains, holding up two fat fingers, “all straight, friend—two whiskeys with seltzer on the side—see? Now go roll your hoop and git back with ’em.”
“Oh, non, monsieur!” cried the two Parisiennes in one breath; “whiskey! jamais! ça pique et c’est trop fort.”
At this juncture the flower woman arrived with a basketful of red roses.
“Voulez-vous des fleurs, messieurs et mesdames?” she asked politely.
“Certainly,” cried the Steel King; “here, Maud and Mamie, take the lot,” and he handed the two girls the entire contents of the basket. The taller buried her face for a moment in the red Jaqueminots and drank in their fragrance. When she looked up, two big tears trickled down to the corners of her pretty mouth. In a moment more she was smiling! The smaller girl gave a little cry of delight and shook her roses above her head as three other girls passed. Ten minutes later the two possessed but a single rose apiece—they had generously given all the rest away.
The “copper twins” had been oblivious of all this. They had been hanging over the low balustrade, engaged in a heart-to-heart talk with two pretty Quartier brunettes. It seemed to be really a case of love at first sight, carried on somewhat under difficulties, for the “copper twins” could not speak a word of French, and the English of the two chic brunettes was limited to “Oh, yes!” “Vary well!” “Good morning,” “Good evening,” and “I love you.” The four held hands over the low railing, until the “copper twins” fairly steamed in talk; warmed by the sun of gaiety and wet by several rounds of Highland dew, they grew sad and earnest, and got up and stepped all over the Steel King and the man from Denver, and the two Parisiennes’ daintily slippered feet, in squeezing out past the group of round tables back of the balustrade, and down on to the polished floor—where they are speedily lost to view in the maze of dancers, gliding into the whirl with the two brunettes. When the waltz is over they stroll out with them into the garden, and order wine, and talk of changing their steamer date.
The good American, with his spotless collar and his well-cut clothes, with his frankness and whole-souled generosity, is a study to the modern grisette. He seems strangely attractive to her, in contrast with a certain type of Frenchman, that is selfish, unfaithful, and mean—that jealousy makes uncompanionable and sometimes cruel. She will tell you that these pale, black-eyed, and black-bearded boulevardiers are all alike—lazy and selfish; so unlike many of the sterling, good fellows of the Quarter—Frenchmen of a different stamp, and there are many of these—rare, good Bohemians, with hearts and natures as big as all out-doors—“bons garçons,” which is only another way of saying “gentlemen.”
As you tramp along back to your quarters some rainy night you find many of the streets leading from the boulevards silent and badly lighted, except for some flickering lantern on the corner of a long block which sends the shadows scurrying across your path. You pass a student perhaps and a girl, hurrying home—a fiacre for a short distance is a luxury in the Quarter. Now you hear the click-clock of an approaching cab, the cocher half asleep on his box. The hood of the fiacre is up, sheltering the two inside from the rain. As the voiture rumbles by near a street-light, you catch a glimpse of a pink silk petticoat within and a pair of dainty, white kid shoes—and the glint of an officer’s sword.
Farther on, you pass a silent gendarme muffled in his night cloak; a few doors farther on in a small café, a bourgeois couple, who have arrived on a late train no doubt to spend a month with relatives in Paris, are having a warming tipple before proceeding farther in the drizzling rain. They have, of course, invited the cocher to drink with them. They have brought all their pets and nearly all their household goods—two dogs, three bird-cages, their tiny occupants protected from the damp air by several folds of newspaper; a cat in a stout paper box with air holes, and two trunks, well tied with rope.