ed
with tea cups or lemonade glasses. Another night you may arrive at
exactly the same time and there will be only candlelight and a few
groups, talking in low tones.

Here, as in all parts of the Village, the man in the rolling collar,
and the girl in the smock, will be markedly in evidence. Yes; they
really do look like that. Lots of the girls have their hair cut short
too.

And "Polly's"!

In many minds, "Polly's" and the Village mean one and the same thing.
Certainly no one could intelligently write about the one without due
and logical tribute to the other. Polly Holliday's restaurant (The
Greenwich Village Inn is its formal name in the telephone book) is not
incidental, but institutional. It is fixed, representative and sacred,
like Police Headquarters, Trinity Church and the Stock Exchange. It is
indispensable and independent. The Village could not get along
without it, but the Village no longer talks about it nor advertises
it. It is, in fact, so obviously a vital part of Greenwich that often
enough a Greenwicher, asked to point out hostelries of peculiar
interest, will forget to mention it.

"How about 'Polly's'?" you remind him.

"Oh--but 'Polly's'!" he protests wonderingly. "Why, it wouldn't be the
Village at all without 'Polly's.' It--why, of course, I never thought
anyone had to be told about _'Polly's_'!"

His attitude will be as disconcerted as though you asked him whether
he was in the habit of using air to breathe,--or was accustomed to
going to bed to sleep.

Polly Holliday used to have her restaurant under the Liberal
Club--where the Dutch Oven is now,--but now she has her own good-sized
place on Fourth Street, and it remains, through fluctuations and fads,
the most thoroughly and consistently popular Village eating place
extant. It is, outwardly, not original nor superlatively striking in
any way. It is a clean, bare place with paper napkins and such waits
between courses as are unquestionably conducive to the encouragement
of philosophic, idealistic, anarchistic and aesthetic debates. But the
food is excellent, when you get it, and the atmosphere both friendly
and--let us admit frankly--inspiring. The people are interesting; they
discuss interesting things. You are comfortable, and you are
exhilarated. You see, quickly enough, why the Village could not
possibly get along without its inn; why "Polly's" is so essential a
part of its life that half the time it overlooks it. Outsiders always