t of Number 26."

"Are you a rag-picker in disguise?"

"I'm going to start a coffee cellar. I was thinking of calling it 'The
Coffee Pot.' What do you think?"

"So you do wish my advice. I will give it to you. Do you see that
plumber's shop next to the corner saloon?" I pointed to the Avenue whose
ceaseless stream of humanity flows past Our Square without ever sweeping
us into its current. "That was once a tea-shop. It was started by a dear
little, prim little old maiden lady. The saloon was run by Tough Bill
Manigan. The little old lady had a dainty sign painted and hung it up
outside her place, 'The Teacup.' Tough Bill took a board and painted a
sign and hung it up outside _his_ place; 'The Hiccup.' The dear little,
prim little old maiden lady took down her sign and went away. Yet there
are those who say that competition is the life of trade."

"Is there a moral to your story, Mr. Dominie?"

"Take it or leave it," said I amiably.

"I will not call my cellar 'The Coffee Pot' lest a worse thing befall
it."

"You are a sensible young woman, Miss Barbara Ann Waterbury."

"It is true that my parents named me that," said she, "but my friends
call me 'Barbran' because I always used to call myself that when I was
little, and I want to be called Barbran here."

"That's very friendly of you," I observed.

She gave me a swift, suspicious look. "You think I'm a fool," she
observed calmly. "But I'm not. I'm going to become a local institution.
A local institution can't be called Barbara Ann Waterbury, unless it's a
creche or a drinking-fountain or something like that, can it?"

"It cannot, Barbran."

"Thank you, Mr. Dominie," said Barbran gratefully. She then proceeded to
sketch out for me her plans for making her Coffee Cellar and herself a
Local Institution, which should lure hopeful seekers for Bohemia from
the far parts of Harlem and Jersey City, and even such outer realms of
darkness as New Haven and Cohoes.

"That's what I intend to do," said Barbran, "as soon as I get my Great
Idea worked out."

What the Great Idea was, I was to learn later and from other lips. In
fact, from the lips of young Phil Stacey, who appeared, rather
elaborately loitering out from behind the fountain, shortly after my new
friend had departed, a peculiar look upon his extremely plain and
friendly face. Young Mr. Stacey is notable, if for no other reason than
that he represents a flat artistic failure on the part of the Bonnie
Lassi