"You mustn't sit by those table," she interposed, as they were about
to drop into their accustomed seats. "Thass so, boys. But no. I mek
you come at this room, like my _trés bon amis_. Yes. I goin' mek for
you myself one _anisette_ and one _café royale_ ver' fine. Ah! I lak
treat my fren' nize. Yes. Plis come in this way."

Madame led them into the little back room, into which she sometimes
invited the especially favoured of her customers. In two comfortable
armchairs, by a big window that opened upon the courtyard, she
placed them, with a low table between. Bustling hospitably about,
she began to prepare the promised refreshments.

It was the first time the reporters had been honoured with admission
to the sacred precincts. The room was in dusky twilight, flecked
with gleams of the polished, fine woods and burnished glass and
metal that the Creoles love. From the little courtyard a tiny
fountain sent in an insinuating sound of trickling waters, to which
a banana plant by the window kept time with its tremulous leaves.

Robbins, an investigator by nature, sent a curious glance roving
about the room. From some barbaric ancestor, madame had inherited a
_penchant_ for the crude in decoration.

The walls were adorned with cheap lithographs--florid libels upon
nature, addressed to the taste of the _bourgeoisie_--birthday cards,
garish newspaper supplements, and specimens of art-advertising
calculated to reduce the optic nerve to stunned submission. A patch
of something unintelligible in the midst of the more candid display
puzzled Robbins, and he rose and took a step nearer, to interrogate