He found the city very hot and close, and as dreary and as empty as a
house that has been shut up for some time while its usual occupants
are away in the country.
As he had to wait over for an afternoon train, and as he was down
town, he decided to lunch at a French restaurant near Washington
Square, where some one had told him you could get particular things
particularly well cooked. The tables were set on a terrace with plants
and flowers about them, and covered with a tricolored awning. There
were no jangling horse-car bells nor dust to disturb him, and almost
all the other tables were unoccupied. The waiters leaned against these
tables and chatted in a French argot; and a cool breeze blew through
the plants and billowed the awning, so that, on the whole, Van Bibber
was glad he had come.
There was, beside himself, an old Frenchman scolding over his late
breakfast; two young artists with Van Dyke beards, who ordered the
most remarkable things in the same French argot that the waiters
spoke; and a young lady and a young gentleman at the table next to his
own. The young man's back was toward him, and he could only see the
girl when the youth moved to one side. She was very young and very
pretty, and she seemed in a most excited state of mind from the tip of
her wide-brimmed, pointed French hat to the points of her patent-
leather ties.
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