ue sky. Here, outside, in the light and the shade
and the heat, there was a great tinkling of the bells of innumerable
streetcars, and a constant strolling and shuffling and rustling of
many pedestrians, a large proportion of whom were young women in
Pompadour-looking dresses. Within, the place was cool and vaguely
lighted, with the plash of water, the odor of flowers, and the flitting
of French waiters, as I have said, upon soundless carpets.

"It's rather like Paris, you know," said the younger of our two
travelers.

"It's like Paris--only more so," his companion rejoined.

"I suppose it's the French waiters," said the first speaker. "Why don't
they have French waiters in London?"

"Fancy a French waiter at a club," said his friend.

The young Englishman started a little, as if he could not fancy it. "In
Paris I'm very apt to dine at a place where there's an English waiter.
Don't you know what's-his-name's, close to the thingumbob? They always
set an English waiter at me. I suppose they think I can't speak French."

"Well, you can't." And the elder of the young Englishmen unfolded his
napkin.

His companion took no notice whatever of this declaration. "I say,"
he resumed in a moment, "I suppose we must learn to speak American. I
suppose we must take lessons."

"I can't understand them," said the clever man.

"What the deuce is HE saying?" asked his comrade, appealing from the
French waiter.

"He is recommending some soft-shell crabs," said the clever man.

And so, in desultory observation of the idiosyncrasies of the new
society in which they found themselves, the young Englishmen proceeded
to dine--going in largely, as the phrase is, for cooling draughts and
dishes, of which their attendant offered them a very long list. After
dinner they went out and slowly walked about the neighboring streets.
The early dusk of waning summer was coming on, but the heat was still
very great. The pavements were hot even to the stout boot soles of the
British travelers, and the trees along the curbstone emitted strange
exotic odors. The young men wandered through the adjoining square--that
queer place without palings, and with marble walks arranged in black
and white lozenges. There were a great many benches, crowded with
shabby-looking people, and the travelers remarked, very justly, that it
was not much like Belgrave Square. On one side was an enormous hotel,
lifting up into the hot darkness an immense array of open, br