ble
American lady. It was recorded that Vi Sin, the Pekin Spaniel of Mrs. H.
of New York, was host to about ten thousand dollars worth of "smart"
dogs. I do not know whether or not this story is true, for I only read
it in the Parisian papers. But certain it is that the episode would have
made no sensation in Paris. A dog eating in a restaurant is a most
ordinary spectacle. Only a few days ago I had lunch with a dog,--a very
quiet, sensible Belgian poodle, very simply dressed in a plain morning
stomach coat of ultramarine with leather insertions. I took quite a
fancy to him. When I say that I had lunch with him, I ought to explain
that he had a lady, his mistress, with him,--that also is quite usual in
Paris. But I didn't know her, and she sat on the further side of him, so
that I confined myself to ordinary table civilities with the dog. I was
having merely a plain omelette, from motives of economy, and the dog had
a little dish of _entrecote d'agneau aux asperges maitre d'hotel_. I
took some of it while the lady was speaking to the waiter and found it
excellent. You may believe it or not, but the entry of a dog into a
French restaurant and his being seated at a table and having his food
ordered creates not the slightest sensation. To bring a child into a
really good restaurant would, I imagine, be looked upon as rather a
serious affair.

Not only is the dog the darling of the hour during his lifetime, but
even in death he is not forgotten. There is in Paris a special dog
cemetery. It lies among the drooping trees of a little island in the
Seine, called the Isle de la Recette, and you may find it by taking the
suburban tramway for Asnieres. It has little tombstones, monuments, and
flowered walks. One sorrow-stricken master has inscribed over a dog's
grave,--"_Plus je vois les hommes, plus j'aime mon chien._" The most
notable feature of the cemetery is the monument of Barry, a St. Bernard
dog. The inscription states that he saved forty lives in the Alps.

But the dog craze is after all only a sign and sample of the prevailing
growth and extent of fashionable luxury. Nowhere in the world, I
suppose, is this more conspicuous than in Paris, the very Vanity Fair of
mundane pleasure. The hostesses of dinners, dances and fetes vie with
one another in seeking bizarre and extravagant effects. Here is a good
example of it taken from actual life the other day. It is an account of
an "oriental fete" given at a private mansion in