nce which arose about
1910, has made it a temple. It gains, too, by being a temple of the
esoteric. The Hindoo Lantern is not everybody's lantern, and does not
swing in the open vulgar street. You might live in New York a hundred
years and unless you were one of the initiated and privileged, you
might never know of its existence.

You could not so much as approach it were it not first explained to
you what you ought to do. You must pass through a tobacconist's, which
from the street looks like any other tobacconist's, after which you
traverse a yard, which looks like any other yard, except that it is
bounded by a wall in which there is a small and unobtrusive door.
Beside the small and unobtrusive door there hangs a bell-rope, of the
ancient kind suggesting the convent or the Orient. The bell-rope
pulls a bell; the bell clangs overhead; the door is opened cautiously
by a Hindoo lad, or, as some say, a mulatto boy dressed as a Hindoo.
If you are with a friend of the institution you will be admitted
without more inspection; but should you be a stranger there will be a
scrutiny of your passports. Assuming, however, that you go in, you
will find a small courtyard, in which at last The Hindoo Lantern hangs
mystic, suggestive, in oriental iron-work, and panels of colored
glass.

Having passed beneath this symbol you will enter an antechamber rich
in the magic of the East. In a reverent obscurity you will find Buddha
on the right, Vishnu on the left, with flowers set before the one,
while incense burns before the other. Somewhere in the darkness an
Oriental woman will be seated on the ground, twanging on a sarabar,
and now and then crooning a chant of invitation to come and share in
darksome rites. You will thus be "worked up" to a sense of the
mysterious before you pass the third gate of privilege into the shrine
itself.

Here you will discover the large empty oval of floor, surrounded by
little tables for segregation and refreshment, with which the past ten
years have made us familiar. The place will be buzzing with the hum of
voices, merry with duologues of laughter, and steaming with tobacco
smoke. A jazz-band will strike up, coughing out the nauseated,
retching intervals so stimulating to our feet, and two by two, in
driblets, streamlets, and lastly in a volume, the guests will take the
floor.

In the way of "steps" all the latest will be on exhibition. You will
see the cow-trot, the rabbit-jump, the broom-stick, th