t him.

A young married woman from uptown came in with her husband and two
other men. A good-looking lad, much flushed and a little unsteady,
stopped by her chair.

"Say, k-kid," he exclaimed, with a disarming chuckle, "you're the
prettiest girl here--and you come here with three p-protectors! Say,
it's a shame!"

He lurched cheerfully upon his way and even the slightly conservative
husband found a grudging smile wrung out of him.

There is a pianist at the Black Cat--a real pianist, not just a person
who plays the piano. She is a striking figure in a quaint, tunic-like
dress, greying hair and a keen face, and a personal friend of half the
frequenters. She has an uncanny instinct for the psychology of the
moment. She knows just when "Columbia" will be the proper thing to
play, and when the crowd demands the newest rag-time. She will feel an
atmospheric change as unswervingly as any barometer, and switch in a
moment from "Good-bye Girls, Good-bye" to the love duet from Faust.
She can play Chopin just as well as she can play Sousa, and she will
tactfully strike up "It's Always Fair Weather" when she sees a crowd
of young fellows sit down at a table; "There'll Be a Hot Time in the
Old Town Tonight" to welcome a lad in khaki; and the very latest fox
trot for the party of girls and young men from uptown, who look as
though they were dying to dance. She plays the "Marseillaise" for
Frenchmen, and "Dixie" for visiting Southerners, and "Mississippi" for
the frequenters of Manhattan vaudeville shows. And, then, at the right
moment, her skilled fingers will drift suddenly into something
different, some exquisite, inspired melody--the soul-child of some
high immortal--and under the spell the noisy crowd grows still for a
moment. For even at the Black Cat they have not forgotten how to
dream.

Probably the Black Cat inspired many other Village restaurants--the
Purple Pup for instance.

The Purple Pup is a queer little place. It is in a most exclusive and
aristocratic part of the Square--in the basement of one of the really
handsome houses, in fact. It is, so far as is visible to the naked
eye, quite well conducted, yet there is something mysterious about it.
Doubtless this is deliberately stage-managed and capitalised, but it
is effectively done. It is an unexpected sort of place. One evening
you go there and find it in full blast; the piano tinkling, many
cramped couples dancing in the two tiny rooms, and every table cover