evenings. I wish one could find a pub in London a
quarter as cheery.
One heard queer conversations in the
bistro. As a
sample I give you Charlie, one of the local curiosities,
talking.
Charlie was a youth of family and education who
had run away from home and lived on occasional
remittances. Picture him very pink and young, with
the fresh cheeks and soft brown hair of a nice little
boy, and lips excessively red and wet, like cherries. His
feet are tiny, his arms abnormally short, his hands
dimpled like a baby's. He has a way of dancing and
capering while he talks, as though he were too happy
and too full of life to keep still for an instant. It is
three in the afternoon, and there is no one in the bistro
except Madame F. and one or two men who are out of
work; but it is all the same to Charlie whom he talks
to, so long as he can talk about himself. He declaims
like an orator on a barricade, rolling the words on his
tongue and gesticulating with his short arms. His
small, rather piggy eyes glitter with enthusiasm. He is,
somehow, profoundly disgusting to see.
He is talking of love, his favourite subject.
«
Ah, l'amour, l'amour! Ah, que les femmes m'ont tué!
Alas, messieurs et dames,
women have been my ruin,
beyond all hope my ruin.