Evening star. [volume] (Washington, D.C.) 1854-1972, 1900-05-26
bow Stranded Americans Manage to
Get Along in Paris.
SEVERAL KINDS OF EASY CRAFTS
But the Best of All is the Fellow
Countryman With Money.
CADGING AS A FINE ART

the usual crop OF students. artists ana mis-
calculating tourists, this spring has already
been SO fruitful in that ripened blossom of
sporting life known frankly the graf
ter" that the exhibition year is likely to he
notable for it's confusion of the sheep and
goats. Heretofore, one had to be silly
sheep indeed not to find the Paris zephyrs
tempered to his shorn hide One was an in
teresting poor scholar or art student, or a
tourist with side-tracked remittances. or
meritorious inventor or promoter planting
the banner of American genius In the
darkened east and the colony and wealth
Ter tourists proved indulgent. Now all this
happy state of things is changed. The
goats and the colony's soft-heartedness are
giving the dead-broke American in Paris Il
bad name
1t was much the case that even now.
when the field threatens to be crowded
could guarantee to any plausible Soung
American, as unburdened with scruples
with cash or credit, fine trip to Paris on
the sole resources of his nerve and trans
port eastward on a cattle ship. No need
to provide in advance for the return trip.
Americans in Paris will do that. 1t VIII
try their patience, and the worthy dead
broke of the future will pay for It, but the
p&sturage is rich today. Indeed if one Is
bound to go broke, there are reasons why
one should prefer this bright, money-spend-
Ing Babylon in all the glamour of its gala
summer.
Some VIII Die First.
1 know there are Americans in Paris who
would dispute the proposition. One 1 call
to mind, a Johns Hopkins University man,
quiet and cultivated, too learned to know
how to hustle, and too proud to "cadae.
He had $40 month as correspondent of an
American trade paper. Now and then he
sold dilettante letter to a Sunday paper.
His name had even been seen on magazine
covers He had come abroad as tutor in u
wealthy family. and accepted a capriclous
discharge without dreaming to demand his
just compensation None of us knew much
about him, except that now and then he
would express a timid wish for work. lie
starved That is to say that from araenia
he slid into cacheXia or marasmus. and,
without protesting, faded out of life. He
could have done the same at home.
Or take that art student from a southern
state who avowedly tried to live on 10 cents
a day, rent. clothes, food, tuition and ma
terials included. He might be seen cheap
ening soup meat with his good-hearted
butcher, who would pretend TO dicker over
the price just to save the boys pride, and
then manage to throw in double value He
did his own cooking. such as it was, and
developed the red-gummed scorbutuS from
a too-eXcesslve diet of potatoes. Having
not even reserve of physique when his
scanty income failed him one month he
came close to starving. He is almost famous
now. but still looks back with bitterness To
the time when fellow-students forced him
to accept their aid. Such impractical ones
are no fair test of the resources of the
colony. 1t would be better to cite that
light-hearted pianist who kept the old
ladies of the Arc de Triomphe quarter
guessing for two years before he quilted
Paris by request.
OF Another Sort.
This young American, who had taken up
a foreign name and let his hair grow, was
the of a SOunI If briliiant
technique, delicate touch and unusual
musical feeling and discretion. Although
his tendency was to be soulful-eyed and
languishing, the buoyancy of his animal
temperament at times betrayed itself in
bobbing in and out the sparkling flood of
the Partisan abandon, which worked against
him.
kind-hearted American lent him her
apartment, for example, to economic in
through one summer. She was not pleased
to learn that he was giving champagne
parties in 1t, with dance features. When he
rented it for two months to tourist family
and proceeded to Ostend with the profits
she put her foot down, and the young
American pianist mad lost valuable pa
iron.
1t was with the proprietor of the Hotel
P. In return for music lessons to the chill
dren there were free board and the run of
the establishment, something really valu-
able in view of the theater invitations.
shopping commissions and the perquisites
of guiding the tenderfoot through Paris-by-
night. He gave a concert (tickets s2) in
the hotel parlor, and complained that the
establishment neglected to furnish refresh
ments gratis. His great fault. however
was making excuses when asked to play
at any and all hours by guests of the hotel
guestsw said Nine P II refuse to risk
my artistic reputation tearing off waltzes
and romances at command he insisted.
Lightning Change Artist.
After he had gone further and done
worse his career in many a chic boarding
hotel of the colony became a lightning
change nightmare. Here today and gone
tomorrow, the talented young pianist some
times had as many as three keys in his
pocket. To cite an instance of the colony's
Indulgence. there were two months when he
lived in borrowed shirts The proprietor
OF pension near the opera noticed a nlys-
ferrous rumpling Of the beds in certain I'M
occupied rooms, one after the other. Set
ting watch, she saw the musician slipping
out at O'Clock one morning, after having
slipped in unostentatiously and late the
weeks free lodging" was her ultimatum,
for she pitied him. 1t was all he needed.
Before two weeks had passed he had per-
an apartment with him nearer the center
Of Paris" How he gave concerts In 1t is to
betray one OF the secrets of musical life
in the colony. They all do 1t. The pianist.
expense Of printing tickets. with the ad-
mission price, 81 or 81, prominent. in heavy
type. The scheme is then to send them
broadcast to the wealthy colonists with
the significant word complimentary writ
ten across their face.
"Confound him. exclaims the wealthy
colonist. II cannot accept his Compliment
tary' for fear Of giving color to a social
obligation. To throw the tickets back in
the struggling artists face would be cruel.
So 1t ends with the mailing of a postal or
der for the marked price of two tickets and
a success for the struggling artist. He
manages to have the Paris papers call 1t
IAN artistic success
Should the wealthy member Of the col
ony accept the complimentary instead Of
paying, social obligation is incurred He
must have the artist to dinner. Well, as
he Is there he may as well be made to work,
and 80 1t comes about there is soiree
musicale. small and select, to follow the
dinner, the colony acknowledges a new
patron Of music, and the last state of the
man Is worse than the first, for he is now
the acknowledged Macaenas of the strug-
Cling artist, with the obligation to help him
out Of financial scrapes. and, in particular,
to buy him steamer tickets home. 1t is
always tickets" never ticket Our young
friend the pianist made use of the device
so often that a committee of ladies at last
formed a syndicate against him. So much
was given him to go to London. There,
when he was ready to embark for New
York his ticket would be given-to the