Part 14 (1/2)

The girls received them amiably. Apparently no one thought of such a formality as names or introductions. The original host stayed away for the rest of the evening, but the four new acquaintances seemed to get along quite satisfactorily without him.

A young married woman from uptown came in with her husband and two other men. A good-looking lad, much flushed and a little unsteady, stopped by her chair.

”Say, k-kid,” he exclaimed, with a disarming chuckle, ”you're the prettiest girl here--and you come here with three p-protectors! Say, it's a shame!”

He lurched cheerfully upon his way and even the slightly conservative husband found a grudging smile wrung out of him.

There is a pianist at the Black Cat--a real pianist, not just a person who plays the piano. She is a striking figure in a quaint, tunic-like dress, greying hair and a keen face, and a personal friend of half the frequenters. She has an uncanny instinct for the psychology of the moment. She knows just when ”Columbia” will be the proper thing to play, and when the crowd demands the newest rag-time. She will feel an atmospheric change as unswervingly as any barometer, and switch in a moment from ”Good-bye Girls, Good-bye” to the love duet from Faust.

She can play Chopin just as well as she can play Sousa, and she will tactfully strike up ”It's Always Fair Weather” when she sees a crowd of young fellows sit down at a table; ”There'll Be a Hot Time in the Old Town Tonight” to welcome a lad in khaki; and the very latest fox trot for the party of girls and young men from uptown, who look as though they were dying to dance. She plays the ”Ma.r.s.eillaise” for Frenchmen, and ”Dixie” for visiting Southerners, and ”Mississippi” for the frequenters of Manhattan vaudeville shows. And, then, at the right moment, her skilled fingers will drift suddenly into something different, some exquisite, inspired melody--the soul-child of some high immortal--and under the spell the noisy crowd grows still for a moment. For even at the Black Cat they have not forgotten how to dream.

Probably the Black Cat inspired many other Village restaurants--the Purple Pup for instance.

The Purple Pup is a queer little place. It is in a most exclusive and aristocratic part of the Square--in the bas.e.m.e.nt of one of the really handsome houses, in fact. It is, so far as is visible to the naked eye, quite well conducted, yet there is something mysterious about it.

Doubtless this is deliberately stage-managed and capitalised, but it is effectively done. It is an unexpected sort of place. One evening you go there and find it in full blast; the piano tinkling, many cramped couples dancing in the two tiny rooms, and every table covered with tea cups or lemonade gla.s.ses. Another night you may arrive at exactly the same time and there will be only candlelight and a few groups, talking in low tones.

Here, as in all parts of the Village, the man in the rolling collar, and the girl in the smock, will be markedly in evidence. Yes; they really do look like that. Lots of the girls have their hair cut short too.

And ”Polly's”!

In many minds, ”Polly's” and the Village mean one and the same thing.

Certainly no one could intelligently write about the one without due and logical tribute to the other. Polly Holliday's restaurant (The Greenwich Village Inn is its formal name in the telephone book) is not incidental, but inst.i.tutional. It is fixed, representative and sacred, like Police Headquarters, Trinity Church and the Stock Exchange. It is indispensable and independent. The Village could not get along without it, but the Village no longer talks about it nor advertises it. It is, in fact, so obviously a vital part of Greenwich that often enough a Greenwicher, asked to point out hostelries of peculiar interest, will forget to mention it.

”How about 'Polly's'?” you remind him.

”Oh--but 'Polly's'!” he protests wonderingly. ”Why, it wouldn't be the Village at all without 'Polly's.' It--why, of course, I never thought anyone had to be told about _'Polly's_'!”

His att.i.tude will be as disconcerted as though you asked him whether he was in the habit of using air to breathe,--or was accustomed to going to bed to sleep.

Polly Holliday used to have her restaurant under the Liberal Club--where the Dutch Oven is now,--but now she has her own good-sized place on Fourth Street, and it remains, through fluctuations and fads, the most thoroughly and consistently popular Village eating place extant. It is, outwardly, not original nor superlatively striking in any way. It is a clean, bare place with paper napkins and such waits between courses as are unquestionably conducive to the encouragement of philosophic, idealistic, anarchistic and aesthetic debates. But the food is excellent, when you get it, and the atmosphere both friendly and--let us admit frankly--inspiring. The people are interesting; they discuss interesting things. You are comfortable, and you are exhilarated. You see, quickly enough, why the Village could not possibly get along without its inn; why ”Polly's” is so essential a part of its life that half the time it overlooks it. Outsiders always know about ”Polly's.” But the Villager?

”'Polly's'? But _of course_ 'Polly's.'”

There it is. _Of course_ ”Polly's.” ”Polly's” is Greenwich Village in little; it is, in a fas.h.i.+on, cosmic and symbolic.

Under the Liberal Club, where ”Polly's” used to be located, the ”Dutch Oven,” with its capacious fireplace and wholesome meals, now holds sway. The prices are reasonable, the food substantial and the atmosphere comfortable, so it is a real haven of good cheer to improvident Villagers.

The Village Kitchen on Greenwich Avenue is another place of the same sort. And Gallup's--almost the first of these ”breakfast and lunch”

shops--is another. They are not unlike a Childs restaurant, but with the rarefied Village air added. You eat real food in clean surroundings, as you do in Childs', but you do it to an accompaniment that is better than music--a sort of life-song, rather stirring and quite touching in its way--the Song of the Village. How can people be both reckless and deeply earnest? But the Villagers are both.

One of the oddest sights on earth is a typical ”Breakfast” at ”Polly's,” the ”Kitchen” or the ”Dutch Oven,” after one of the masked b.a.l.l.s for which the Village has recently acquired such a pa.s.sion.

After you have been up all night in some of these mad masquerades--of which more anon--you may not, by Village convention, go home to bed.

You must go to breakfast with the rest of the Villagers. And you must be prepared to face the cold, grey dawn of ”the morning after” while still in your war paint and draggled finery. It is an awful ordeal.

But ”it's being done in the Village”!

Quite recently a new sort of eating place has sprung up in Greenwich Village--of so original and novel a character that we must investigate it in at least a few of its manifestations. Speaking for myself, I had never believed that such places could exist within sound of the ”L”

and a stone's throw from drug stores and offices.