ABSTRACT
One of the best restaurants in New York, and one of the most exacting for young purses, had once its vogue among discontented youths of irrepressible individuality. There they found, on happier days, some popular tenor, an approachable merchant from Martinique, a talkative boulevardier, or some other incarnation of their Mistress France. At least they found one another. When plain William had failed once more to vend his erotic verse, and the undoubted distinction of Edward's black mane had not yet sufficed to palm off his impressionism, and Herbert had a thing for Town Topics, not quite finished, it was a distinct solace to leave work for condolence in the pose of the Latin Quarter. You sauntered into the cafe, saluted the very business-like woman at the counter, found a loose French weekly, and sat beside a marble-topped table at the window. The others would arrive; and together you would drink toward a serener view of life. To have hope rather than faith, to be idle under the guise of research into humanity, to indulge a smattering of French and a taste for spirits, to talk dispassionately of vaudeville—these made you eligible; this was Bohemian. Deux Mazagrans, said with quiet assurance, was almost equivalent to conversation. If you expatiated upon symbolism without boggling at the absinthe, you were a Bohemian professed. What have cigarettes and uncooked criticism in a French restaurant to do with Bohemia?
