ne shifters, or artists--of both
sexes--the men being either too old or otherwise ineligible for the
army. This was their only square meal during twenty-four hours. They
made at home such coffee as they could afford, and went without dinner
more often than not. The daughter of this very necessary charity, a
handsome strongly built girl, told me that she had waited on her table
without a day's rest for eighteen months.

I am frank to say that I could not eat the veal and spinach, and
confined myself to the potatoes and bread. But no doubt real hunger is
a radical cure for fastidiousness.

Later in the day Madame Verone took me to the once famous Abbaye, now
a workroom for the dressers of dolls, a revived industry which has
given employment to hundreds of women. Some of the wildest revels of
Paris had taken place in the restaurant now incongruously lined with
rows of dolls dressed in every national costume of Allied Europe. They
sat sedately against the walls, Montenegrins, Serbians, Russians,
Italians, Sicilians, Roumanians, Poilus, Alsatians, Tommies,[C] a
strange medley, correctly but cheaply dressed. At little tables, mute
records of disreputable nights, sat women stitching, and outside the
streets of Montmartre were as silent as the grave.

[C] No doubt there are now little Uncle Sams.

II

A few days later I was introduced to a case of panurgy that would have
been almost extreme in any but a Frenchwoman.

Madame Camille Lyon took me to call on Madame Pertat, one of the most
successful doctors in Paris. I found both her history and her
personality highly interesting, and her experience no doubt will be a
severe shock to many Americans who flatter themselves that we alone of
all women possess the priceless gift of driving initiative.

Madame Pertat was born in a provincial town, of a good family, and
received the usual education with all the little accomplishments that
were thought necessary for a young girl of the comfortable
bourgeoisie. She confessed to me naively that she had coquetted a good
deal. As her brother was a doctor and brought his friends to the house
it was natural that she should marry into the same profession; and as
she continued to meet many doctors and was a young woman of much
mental curiosity and a keen intelligence it was also natural that she
should grow more and more deeply interested in the science of medicine
and take part in the learned discussions at her table.

One day he