near me, he looked picturesque enough, seated on a boulder, a big
strong man with a square-cut beard, his hands resting on the hilt
of a cavalry sabre--and all around him a landscape of savage
mountains. He caught my eye on that spiritedly composed woodcut.
(There were no inane snapshot-reproductions in those days.) It was
the obvious romance for the use of royalists but it arrested my
attention.

Just then some masks from outside invaded the cafe, dancing hand in
hand in a single file led by a burly man with a cardboard nose. He
gambolled in wildly and behind him twenty others perhaps, mostly
Pierrots and Pierrettes holding each other by the hand and winding
in and out between the chairs and tables: eyes shining in the
holes of cardboard faces, breasts panting; but all preserving a
mysterious silence.

They were people of the poorer sort (white calico with red spots,
costumes), but amongst them there was a girl in a black dress sewn
over with gold half moons, very high in the neck and very short in
the skirt. Most of the ordinary clients of the cafe didn't even
look up from their games or papers. I, being alone and idle,
stared abstractedly. The girl costumed as Night wore a small black
velvet mask, what is called in French a "loup." What made her
daintiness join that obviously rough lot I can't imagine. Her
uncovered mouth and chin suggested refined prettiness.

They filed past my table; the Night noticed perhaps my fixed gaze
and throwing her body forward out of the wriggling chain shot out
at me a slender tongue like a pink dart. I was not prepared for
this, not even to the extent of an appreciative "Tres foli," before