Evening star., 1897-09-25

Something awfully interesting must row
be going to happen, I felt sure. and so did
the St Louis maiden. Would he sIurn her?
Would she shower reproaches on him for
his lack of confidence? Or would she pat
him on the shoulder once again?
Alas, the party to which the fair young
American student Of French human nature
was attached must then Immediately take
its straight departure. Have you your
wrap, Mabel?' So she left her first French
short story just as it was growing complf-
Gated. Did she think the two were cousins?
Or engaged? Or that it was a naughty
adventures. intent on running her young
man, both financially and morally? Thus
we, like the maiden from st. Louis, walk
and look and see and do not understand.
Real Thing In Students.
Let us take notice, rather, of the young
men who are really students, while the
damsels do not have their names down on
the lists of the Sorbonne. Theses youth,
you will perceive Immediately, are very
youthful for the most part: very much ex-
cited with the pleasures of so fairy-like
garden, very highly dressed in velveteen
pants, coats or vests, and some with won-
derfully colored shirts, and all with flaming
neckties Haunting in the breeze. Even at
this tender age some manage to faunt ten
der, pointed boards, hair lacking, scatter
ing, combed up from beneath the neck and
all around, wherever it will grow.
Are these uncouth, sap-headed adoles-
cents the famed Latin Quarter students.
gay Par;sians? Latin Quarter students they
are truly, and gay also. but Parisians?
Jamais de Ia vie! They are rank country
men, arcades ambo, hayseeds one and all,
from every little town and big, from every
hamlet, mountain cross-road and small vii
lage of the dale, come up to Paris, not be-
cause there are no universities in their
own province, but because they wish to live
gay capital. And here is where they really
have the laugh on us, on our fond tourist
superiority, when we sneer at them,
''Parsians as well .'college men,"
You call these little, addressed, extrava-
gantly gotten-up simians college men?'
Our college men, from home sniff, and
with as much disdain as the sniff of the
chaperon has in it for the damsels.
Yes, they are of the Sorbonne evidently
must come the answer.
"And PariSianS?'
"Oh, no! The Partisan students are at
home, out in society if they be of it, in at
girls of their own class dance in white, dis
creetly. timidly, decorously backed up and
hedged in by their mammas, aunts and
married sisters
Vie dc BOheme.
Yes, these are countrymen, ard, well sup
piled with money, ili-supplied or moderate
ly or scarce at ALL the secret wish of the
great mass is to live, each in his own per-
son, the vie de boheme of Henri Murger's
mawky jolly little romance. My friend
Vasseur, from a small town on the Loire,
was of such aspirations, AMI with the cour-
age to attempt realization of them.
Spending his first month III Paris and the
Quarter in breathless hunt for the con-
81 mptive lassie who should be the rCman-
tically perishing Mimi Of his Vie de Bo-
heme, he at last found one with two fine
hectic fiushes, one on each cheek, natur-
ally.
''Will you die in the spring." he asked
her.
Yes, when the 'earliest flowers are bud
ding" she replied.
They became engaged at once, and in the
Latin Quarter fashion; and in chosen
corner of the Brasserie dHarcourt they
would linger, planning tenJecly.
Il have $50 francs ;$13D month";" he
explained to her. 1--WE will live On SEQ
month and the rest will be for the doctor
and druggist.
My Rodophev' .
my Muse-at sl3D a month";
The poor little thing did not really die in
the early springtime-a circumstance that
mortified her horribly. II think we ought
to have some sort of funeral just the
same she was wont to nurn1ur from
time to time.
Whereat at length the emotions CT the
romantic youth from the banks of the
Loire burst forth, and his pent-up ideal,
floating on that great wave. showed itself
in all its splendid nudity. There was to be
no funeral" he cried desperately You
were to die. like Mimi, IN the !lospital"'
1.-The hospital?" she answered. "Zutv'
And so one Latin Quarter romance ended
with abruptions. STERLING HEILIG.