s, and the

at deal with the satisfying of man's appetite? Who ever heard of a dyspept

Bartlett

ghbourhood. I suppose nothing in Greenwich Village could be more significantly illuminating than its eating places. There are, of course, many sorts. The Village is neither so unique nor so uniform as to have onl

k at night-is the Village. So is the Lafayette on occasion. During the day they are delightful French hostelries catering to all the world who like heavenly things to ea

e uptowners-the regulation clientèle-are going away, having finished gorging themselves on delectable things; some few of them are lingerin

fore completing their dinner a block away at the Lafayette. The head wai

st. Regard, then-one perceives they are not h

nt. There is a man who has won a fortune in war-brides-the one at the next table did it with ca

e of light upon rare wine, the complex murmur of a well-filled dining-room. It is s

lock are pointing to t

ol and airy. If you hurry you will be just in time to see the Village come in. For this is their

irls with hair that, red, black or blonde, is usually either arranged in a wildly natural bird's-nest mass, or boldly clubbed after the fashion of Joan of Arc and Mrs. Vernon Castle; girls with tense little faces, slender arms and an astonishing capacity as to cigarettes. And men who, for the most part, are too busy with their ideals to cut their hair; men whose collars may be low and rolling, or high and bound with black silk stocks after the style of another day; men

meone in the crowd who is "flush," and that means who will pay. For the Villagers are not parsimonious; they stand

the world's sweetheart" France. I have never seen a French restaurant where the most casual visitor was not made personally and charmingly welcome, and I have never seen such typically French restaurants as the Lafayette and the Brevoort. And t

rom the Brevoort-all the Village eating places are close toget

e old style, a survival of the days when all Bohemian restaurants were Italian. La Signora says they have been there, just there on Third Street, for twenty years. If you are a newcomer you will probably eat in the upstairs room, in cool and rather remote grandeur, and the pretty daughter with the wondrous black eyes will serve you the more elaborate of the most extraordinarily named dishes on the menu. But if, by long experience, you know

ing in the alley back of the restaurant. I have watched them fascinated for long periods and I have never learned what it is they are trying to do with those big "bowling balls." They have no nine

it?" I asked

" she returned vaguely, "a gam

at the back of it, objects. The Chiesa, I think, is the Judson Memorial Church on Washington Square. Just why they don't want the Signora to have tables in her own back yard is not clear. She,

sper. "What a delight

nt of the big hotel," s

has built himself a little house about the size of a dog kennel. It is a real house, and like nothing so much as the historic residence of the Three Bears. It has a window, eaves, weather-strips and a clothesline, for he does his own washing. He trots off there very happily when his light work is done, and, when his door is closed, opens it for no one. That scrap of a building is Castagna's castle. One evening

he same, it is fascinating. From the moment you pass the outer, polite portals and intermediate anterooms and enter the big, smoke-filled, deafening room at the back, you are enormously interested, excellently entertained. The noise is the thing that impresses you first. In most Village resorts you find quiet the order of the day-or rather night. Even "Polly's," crowded as it is, is not noisy. In the Brevoort there is a steady, low rumble of talk, but not

s wishes conflict with someone else's, and then there is a fight, and the police are called, and the rest of the patrons have a beautiful time watching a perfectly good and unexpected free show! As a rule, however, this determination on the part of each one to do what he wants to has no violent results. An incident will sh

e and take his place," explained one n

ames or introductions. The original host stayed away for the rest of the evening, b

husband and two other men. A good-looking lad, much

kle, "you're the prettiest girl here-and you come

even the slightly conservative husband

barometer, and switch in a moment from "Good-bye Girls, Good-bye" to the love duet from Faust. She can play Chopin just as well as she can play Sousa, and she will tactfully strike up "It's Always Fair Weather" when she sees a crowd of young fellows sit down at a table; "There'll Be a Hot Time in the Old Town Tonight" to welcome a lad in khaki; and the very latest fox trot for the party of girls and young men from uptown, who look as though they were d

d many other Village restauran

there is something mysterious about it. Doubtless this is deliberately stage-managed and capitalised, but it is effectively done. It is an unexpected sort of place. One evening you go there and find it in full blast; the piano tinkling,

nd the girl in the smock, will be markedly in evidence. Yes; they real

"Pol

l name in the telephone book) is not incidental, but institutional. It is fixed, representative and sacred, like Police Headquarters, Trinity Church and the Stock Exchange. It is indispensable and independent. The Village could not get alon

Polly's'?" y

n't be the Village at all without 'Polly's.' It-why, of cou

sked him whether he was in the habit of using air to

king in any way. It is a clean, bare place with paper napkins and such waits between courses as are unquestionably conducive to the encouragement of philosophic, idealistic, anarchistic and ?sthetic debates. But the food is excellent, when you get it, and the atmosphere both friendly and-let us admit frankly-inspiring. The peo

But of cours

y's" is Greenwich Village in little; it

s fireplace and wholesome meals, now holds sway. The prices are reasonable, the food substantia

Childs restaurant, but with the rarefied Village air added. You eat real food in clean surroundings, as you do in Childs', but you do it to an accompaniment that is better than

ion. After you have been up all night in some of these mad masquerades-of which more anon-you may not, by Village convention, go home to bed. You must go to breakfast with the rest of the Villa

cter that we must investigate it in at least a few of its manifestations. Speaking for myself, I had never be

at you thi

ating places of the Village. Some of

lieve that!

pitying tone. "Try again: draw

e trying," she said. "One can

was your age, I always did it for half-an-hour a day. Why, sometime

the Look

I said. "You've made a

and companion. "This is where

is-is-isn'

eering through the dim and gloomy doorway, it appeared instead to be a particularly desolate-looking cellar. There were old barrels and bo

xclaimed. "It looks as though it might be a burglars' den o

k at me triumphantly.

enue, I saw the shabby little wooden sign, "The Samova

pickpockets or rats, and climbed that ladder-I me

ightly partitioned-off kitchenette where the hungry could descry piles of sandwiches and many coffee cups. And there in the middle of the loft was the Samovar itself, a really splendid affair, and one actually not for deco

list. A shabby poet announced to the sympathetic that he had sold something after two years of work. Immediately they set about making a real fiesta of the unusual occasion. Miss Bailey, a small, round, efficient person with nice eyes and good manners, moved about among her guests, all of whom she seemed to know. The best cheese sandwic

t into the fresh quiet of Fourth Street at midnight, I had a really odd sensation. I felt as tho

haps that is why it comes first to my memory as I write. I do not know that it is

erament" and "individuality" and the rest of the writer-folk's old reliables, "atmosphere" is too often only a makeshift, a lazy way of expressing something you won't take the trouble to define more expressively. Dick says in "The Light

but it's there, and it's the real thing. It's an absolute essence and ether which you feel intensely and breathe necessarily, but which no one can put quite definitely into the

he Village with contemptuous irritation. "They pretend to be seeking after truth and

e and unsuspected, a secret life of the spirit-either a life of remembrance or a life of imagination visualising what we have wanted and have missed,-what do we do but pretend,-make believe,-pose, if you will? When we are little we pretend to be knights and ladies, pirates and fairy princesses, soldiers and Red Cross nurses, and sailors and hunters and explorers. We people the window boxes with elves and pixies and the dark corners with Red Indians and bears. The commonplace world about us is not truly commonplace, since our fancy, still fresh from eternity, can transform three dusty shrubs into an enchanted forest, and an automobile into the most deliciously formidable of the Dragon Family. A bit later, our pretending is done more cautiously. We do not confess our shy flights of imagination: we take a prosaic outward pose, and try not to advertise the fact that our geese wear

is a regulation "Jolly Roger," a black flag ornamented with skull and crossbones. Grim? Sure

oom and look about you. It is the most perfect pirate's den you can imagine. On the walls hang huge casks and kegs and wine bottles in their straw covers,-all the signs manual of past and future orgies. Yet the "Pirate's Den" is "dry"-straw-dry, brick-dry - as dry as the Sahara. If you want a "drink" the well-mannered "cut-throat" who serves you will

oetry and helps to edit a magazine among other thin

h Sea Islands," he declares seriously. "And we are going

erly intoxicating. A very talented and picturesque Villager has painted every inch of it himself, including the mysterious-looking Arabian gentleman in brilliantly hued wood, who sits cross-legged luring you into the little place of magic. The wrought iron brackets on the wall are patches of vivid tints; the

l o' the Wisp" tea shop once and found the gas-jet lighted! The yo

ed. "But I wanted to see jus

ostly candlelight. It was enti

e by day" is not truly applicable to these Village shrines. Even under the searching beams o

sement tea room, is an inscription in chalk. It looks like anything but English. But if you held a looking-glass up to it you would find that it is "Down the Rabbit Hole" written backward

er. She is a good-looking young woman dressed in a bizarre red and blue effect, not unlike one of the Queens, b

led, "'There's plenty

manuscript and a pile of cigarette butts. The great thing here once more is that they are taking their little play and their little stage with a h

except for the trap hanging outside and a mouse scrawled in chalk on the wall of the entry, carries out no particular suggestion either of traps or mice. But take a look at the proprietress (Rita they call her), with her

erly devoid of a twinkle and answer: "I? I am part Scotc

g pie. She overhears a reference to the "Candlestick," a little

as every child knows, you spoil the game. They laugh heartily enough and often enough down in the Village, but they never laugh

ack kitchen is taking the fat, delicious-smelling cakes from the oven. Drop in some afternoon and sniff the fragrance that suggests your childhood and "spong

ce c

late

arts with wh

hot and fresh and enticing from the oven. White cakes, golden cakes, delicately browned pies

ave had to content myself with some dozen or so examples,-recorded almost haphazard, for the most part, but as I believe

with the inevitable smock and braided hair, where tea is se

rother, which was heartlessly raided by the police, an

he other resorts closed for the night you repaired to the "Hell Hole." As to the smoking, it has taken a good while for New York to allow its Bohemian women this privilege, though society leade

our to it! And many a happy small-hours party has brought up there to

his hotel dropped in at a certain place for a drink. He found the company congenial and drifted into a little game which further interested him. It was a p

me of chance, there is many a place in Greenwich Village which might easi

what, for over fifty years, has been the old Sheridan Square Tavern, and its proprietors are the Mosses,-poet, editor and incidental "pirate" on one side of the house; and designer of enchanting "art clothes" on t

n the Village. Let us take the opening

ls of the room-those mysterious and impressive shades created by the imagination of Lew Parrish-it is th

n, fascinating, syncopated rhythm. A graceful girl in Indian dress glides in and plac

ere are empty skies overhead, instead of the "live-colour" ceiling. With an agile movement, she rises and begins to dance about the candle, and you know that to her

ndle, until at last she sinks beside it a

rk-wood tables with their flowers and candles begin to gl