On Leaving The Circus, Very Naturally We Went To The
Cafe - Where The First Part Of The Little Dinner Comedy Had Been
Enacted.
We encountered both artists, professional or amateur, of
blacklead and bristol board, but we met a waiter there who was
an artist - in his line.
I ordered a cigar of him, specifying
that the cigar should be of a brand made in Havana and popular in
the States. He brought one cigar on a tray. In size and shape
and general aspect it seemed to answer the required specifications.
The little belly band about its dark-brown abdomen was certainly
orthodox and regular; but no sooner had I lit it and taken a couple
of puffs than I was seized with the conviction that something had
crawled up that cigar and died. So I examined it more closely and
I saw then that it was a bad French cigar, artfully adorned about
its middle with a second-hand band, which the waiter had picked
up after somebody else had plucked it off one of the genuine
articles and had treasured it, no doubt, against the coming of
some unsophisticated patron such as I. And I doubt whether that
could have happened anywhere except in Paris either. That is just
it, you see. Try as hard as you please to see the real Paris,
the Paris of petty larceny and small, mean graft intrudes on you
and takes a peck at your purse.
Go where you will, you cannot escape it.
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