Thrice in a lifetime may woman walk upon
clouds--once when she trippeth to the altar, once when she first
enters Bohemian halls, the last when she marches back across her
first garden with the dead hen of her neighbor in her hand.
There was a table set, with three or four about it. A waiter buzzed
around it like a bee, and silver and glass shone upon it. And,
preliminary to the meal, as the prehistoric granite strata heralded
the protozoa, the bread of Gaul, compounded after the formula of
the recipe for the eternal hills, was there set forth to the hand
and tooth of a long-suffering city, while the gods lay beside their
nectar and home-made biscuits and smiled, and the dentists leaped for
joy in their gold-leafy dens.
The eye of Binkley fixed a young man at his table with the Bohemian
gleam, which is a compound of the look of the Basilisk, the shine of
a bubble of Wuerzburger, the inspiration of genius and the pleading of
a panhandler.
The young man sprang to his feet. "Hello, Bink, old boy!" he shouted.
"Don't tell me you were going to pass our table. Join us--unless
you've another crowd on hand."
"Don't mind, old chap," said Binkley, of the fish-stall. "You know
how I like to butt up against the fine arts. Mr. Vandyke--Mr.
Madder--er--Miss Martin, one of the elect also in art--er--"
The introduction went around. There were also Miss Elise and Miss
'Toinette. Perhaps they were models, for they chattered of the St.
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