owever,
are affirmed to be "places of quality."

Now, the social customs of this part of town, as they may be abundantly
viewed on our thoroughfare, are agreeable to observe. At night our
boulevard twinkles with lights like a fairyland. The view of across
the way through the gardens, as they should be called, down the middle
of the street, is enchanting. All aglow our spic-and-span trolley
cars--all our trolley cars are spic-and-span--ride down the way like
"floats" in a nocturnal parade. Upon the sidewalks are happy throngs,
and a hum of cheery sound. The throngs of our neighbourhood are
touched with an indescribable character of place; they are not the
throngs of anywhere else. They are not exactly Fifth Avenue; they are
not the Great White Way. They are nice throngs, healthy throngs,
care-free throngs, modish throngs in the modes of magazine
advertisements. And all their members are young.

You will notice as you go and come that you pass the same laughing
groups in precisely the same spot, hour after hour. Those who compose
these groups seem to be calling upon one another. Apparently, on
pleasant evenings, it is the form here for you to receive your guests
in this way, in the open air. And you jest, and converse, and while
the time amiably away, just as many people do at home. "Well," says my
wife, "the rooms in the apartments in this part of town are so small
that nobody can bring anybody into them."

XII

A CLERK MAY LOOK AT A CELEBRITY

A clerk may look at a celebrity. For a number of years, we, being
diligent in our business, stood and waited before kings in a celebrated
book shop. Now (like Casanova, retired from the world of our triumphs
and adventures) we compose our memoirs. "We know from personal
experience that a slight tale, a string of gossip, will often alter our
entire conception of a personality,"--from a contemporary book review.
This, the high office of tittle-tattle, is what we have in our eye. We
are Walpolian, Pepysian.

"These Memoirs, Confessions, Recollections, Impressions (as the title
happens) are extremely valuable in the pictures they contain of the
time. Especially happy are they in the intimate glimpses they give us
of the distinguished people, particularly the men of letters, of the
day. The writer was an attache of the court," the writer was this, the
writer was that, but always the writer had peculiar facilities for
observing intimately--and so forth.