What if the East should ne’er grow wan,
Should never more grow gray!
That line of rose no more be drawn
Above the ocean’s spray!
THE SONG OF BROADWAY
By Robert Stewart
A certain club of good fellows of both sexes, journalists, authors, illustrators, actors, men of pleasure, and Bohemians generally, used to gather on Sunday evenings, a merry decade ago, round the hospitable table of an Italian lady who had acquired her culinary accomplishments under the distinguished eye of M. Martin—late chef to M. de Lesseps, and present proprietor of Martin’s Restaurant—before she attempted to practice on her own account, so to speak, in the basement of a dingy brick house in West Twelfth Street.
Signora Maria was a trusting soul in those days, and many a hungry poor devil has hung up his hat, coat and dinner there, and blessed his kind hostess as he quaffed her red ink. We didn’t say claret; we called out: “Where’s my red ink bottle, Maria?” And Maria would put down the soup tureen she was going from table to table with, and fetch us a pint of her ordinaire. It was sour stuff certainly, which even Maria’s radiant smile couldn’t sweeten, but budding genius is careless of the morrow, and on Sunday evenings, especially, when Maria held her salon in the boarded back room, built out over the yard, vast quantities of it were gayly consumed, along with cigarettes, and coffee, and flaming pousse-cafés.