n) weeping because life is so short and death
so long? Are you young again and do memories sing in your brain? And
does the snow melt from the landscape of your life and in its place
bloom again the wild poppies of the Saint Cloud roadways, telegraphing
their drowsy, content through the evening air to Paris?

Or is the only rosemary of Paris that you have carried back with you
the memory of a two-step danced with some painted bawd at the Abbaye,
the memory of the night when you drank six quarts of champagne without
once stopping to prove to the onlookers in the Rat Mort that an American
can drink more than a damned Frenchman, the memory of that fine cut of
roast beef you succeeded in obtaining at the Ritz?

* * * * *

Did I mention food? Ah-h-h, the night romance of Parisian nutriment!
Parisian, said I. Not the low hybrid dishes of the bevy of
British-American hotels that surround the Place Vendome and march up the
Rue de Castiglione or of such nondescripts as the Tavernes Royale and
Anglaise--but _Parisian_. For instance, my good man, _caneton a la
bigarade_, or duckling garnished with the oozy, saliva-provoking sauce
of the peel of bitter oranges. There is a dish for you, a philter
wherewith to woo the appetite! For example, my good fellow, sole Mornay
(no, no, not the "sole Mornay" you know!), the sole Mornay whose each
and every drop of shrimp sauce carries with it to palate and nostril the
faint suspicion of champagne. Oysters, too. Not the Portuguese--those
arrogant shysters of a proud line--but the Arcachons Marennes and
Cancales _superieures_: baked in the shell with mushrooms and cheese,
and washed down exquisitely with the juice of grapes goldened by the
French suns. And salmon, cold, with sauce Criliche; and artichokes made
sentimental with that Beethoven-like fluid orchestrated out of caviar,
grated sweet almonds and small onions; and ham boiled in claret and
touched up with spinach _au gratin_. The romance of it--and the wonder!

But other things, alackaday, must concern us. _Au 'voir_, my beloveds,
_au 'voir_! _Au 'voir_ to thee, _La Matelote_, thou fair and fair and
toothsome fish stew, and to thee, _Perdreau Farci a la Stuert_, thou
aristocratic twelve-franc seducer of the esophagus! _Au 'voir_, my
adored ones, _au 'voir_.

_Voila!_ And now again are we afield under the French moon. What if no
more are the grisettes of Paul de Kock and Murger to fascinate the eye
with