"Ah! Pastropbon, we got ba-bee' enough presently, en't it?"

"Ole woman, nobody else ever strock dat lott'ree for such a prize like
dat."


* * * * *


The Entomologist



I


An odd feature of New Orleans is the way homes of all ranks, in so many
sections of it, are mingled. The easy, bright democracy of the thing is
what one might fancy of ancient Greeks; only, here there is a general
wooden frailty.

A notable phase of this characteristic is the multitude of small, frame,
ground-story double cottages fronting endwise to the street, on lots that
give either side barely space enough for one row of twelve-foot rooms with
windows on a three-foot alley leading to the narrow backyard.

Thus they lie, deployed in pairs or half-dozens, by hundreds, in the
variable intervals that occur between houses and gardens of dignity and
elegance; hot as ovens, taking their perpetual bath of the great cleanser,