he confessed his
inability to reform matters. Why can't we have one place in London where
one can get drinks, or coffee if desired, and listen to really good
music? There is a mass of the best work that is suitable for quartet or
quintet, or has been adapted for small orchestra; why is it never heard?
Mr. Jacobs says that Londoners don't want it. I don't believe him. "If I
play," he says, "anything of Mozart or Bach or Handel or Ravel or
Chopin, they are impatient. They talk--ever so loud. And when it is
finished, they rush up and say: 'Play "Hitchy Koo."' 'Play "The Girl in
the Taxi."'" But I believe there is really a big public for a fully
licensed cafe with a good band which shall have a definite programme of
the best music every evening, and stick to that programme regardless of
"special requests."

At the cafe where Georgie and I were lounging, the band was kept hard at
work by these Requests. They were "La Boheme" selection, "That Midnight
Choo-choo," "Tipperary," "Tales of Hoffman" Barcarolle, "All Aboard for
Dixie," "In my Harem," and "The Ragtime Navvy." At the first bars of the
Navvy we drifted out, and fell into the arms of The Tattoo Artist, who
was taking an evening off.

The tattoo artist is a person of some consequence. He has a knowledge of
London that makes most Londoners sick, and his acquaintance with queer
and casual characters is illimitable. He was swollen with good food and
drink, and as he extended a strong right arm to greet us, he positively
shed a lustre of success and power. The state of business in all trades
and professions may be heartbreakingly bad, but there is one profession
in which there are no bad seasons--one that will survive and flourish
until the world ceases to play the quaint comedy of love. All the world
loves a lover, and none more so than the tattoo artist, or, to give him
his professional name, Professor Sylvanus Ruffino, the world's champion,
whose studio is in Commercial Road. When a young man of that district
has been bitten by the serpent of love, what does he do? He goes to
Sylvanus, and has the name of the lady, garnished with a heart or a
floral cupid, engraved on his hands, arms, or chest. His "studio" is a
tiny shop, with a gaudy chintz curtain for door, the window decorated
with prints of the tattooed bodies of his clients. Elsewhere about the
exterior are coloured designs of Chinese dragons, floral emblems,
cupids, anchors, flags, and other devices with which yo