The Savannah morning news., 1900-06-14
LIVE BY THEIR WITS
HOW STRANDED AMERICANS MAN
AGE TO GET ALONG IN PARIS.

q
Countryman With housekeeping
as Fine Art.
Paris Letter in Washington Star.
Americans go broke in Paris. Apart from
the usual crop of students, artists and
Tniscalculating tourists. this spring has
already been so fruitful in that rIpened
blossom OF sporting life known frankly as
the CRATER that the exhibition year is
likely to be notable for its 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 interesting poor scholar
or art student, or a tourist with side
tracked remittances, or a meritorious in
ventor or promoter planting the banner
OF American genius in the darkest East,
and the colony and weather. tourists
proved Indugent. 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 bad name.
1t was so much the case that even now,
when the field threatens to be crowded
could guarantee to any plausible young
American. as unourdened with scruples a
with cash or credit, a fine Grip to Paris
on the sole resources of his nerve and
transport eastward on a cattle ship. No
need TO provide in advance for the return
trip. Americans in Paris will do that II
will try their patience. and the worthy
dead-broke of the future Will pay for 1t,
but the pasturage is rich to-day. Indeed.
if one is bound to go broke, there are
reasons why one should prefer this
bright, money-spending Babylon in all the
glamour of its gala summer.
Some VIII Die First.
l know there are Americans in Paris
who would dispute the proposition. One
call to mind Johns Hopkins University
man, quiet and cultivated 100 learned to
know how to hustle, and too proud TO
'cadge." He had $40 a month as corre-
spondent of an American trade paper
Now and then he sold dilettan;e letter
to a Sunday paper. His name had even
been seen on magazine covers. He had
come abroad as tutor in a wealthy family
and accepted cnpricious discharge with
out dreaming to demand his just compen-
sation. None of us know much about
him, except that now and then he would
express q timd wish for work He
starved. That is to say. that from anse-
mia he slid into cncheXia or marasmus,
and without protesting, faded out of life.
He could have done the same a home.
Or, take that ART student from the
Southern state who avowedly tried to
live on 20 cents a day, rent, clothes, food,
tuition and materials included. He might
be seen cheapening soup meat with his
good nc arted butcher, who would pretend
10 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 Develop d the
red-gummed scorbutus from a too-exces-
ct, yaf
reserve Of physique. when his scanty
income failed him one month he came
close to starving. He is almost famous
now. but sull looks back with bitterness
40 the time when fellow students forced
him to accept their aid. Such impracti-
cal ones are no fair test of the resources
OF ths co.ouy IT would be better to cite
that lght-heared pianist who kept the
old ladies' of the Arc de Triomphe quarter
guessing for two years before he quilted |
Paris by request.
Oc Another Sort.
This young American. who had taken |
w q foreign name and let his hair grow |
was the Dossessor Of q sound, If not brill |
liant technique. a delicate tauch and I'M |
usual mssical feeling and discretion AL |
Though his tendency was to be soulful |
eyed and languishug, the buoyancy of |
his animal temperament a times betray
ed itself in bobbing In ond out the spark |
ling food of the Partisan abandon. which |
worked against him.
kind-hearted American lent him her |
apartment for example, to economize in |
through one summer She was not plea sed |
10 learn that he was giving champagne |
parties in it. with dance features When |
he rented il for two months to tourist |
family and proceeded 10 Ostend with the !
profits she put her foot down, and the |
young American pianist had lost a val |
liable patron.
1t was so with the proprietor of the |
Hotel p. In return for music lessons to |
the children there were free board and |
the run of the establishment, sometimes |
really valuable in view of the theater in
vitations, shopping commissions and the |
perquisites of guiding the tenderfoot |
through Paris-by-nlg He gave a con-
cert (tickets, $2) in the hotel paror. and
complained that the establishment ne
elected to furnish refreshments gratis. |
His great fault however, was making |
excuses when asked TO play" az any |
and all hours by guests of the hotel.
at is the least Of things to amuse the
guests" sold Nine. p Il refuse to risk |
my artistic reputation tearing off waltzes
and romances at command" he insisted. |
A Lightning Change Artist.
After he had gone further and done
worse his career in many q chic board
ming change nightmare. Here to-day and
gone tomorrow, the talented young plan
st sometimes had many three keys
in pocket To cite an instance of the
colony's Indulgence, there were two
months when he lived in borrowed shirts! |
The proprietor of a pension near the opera
noticed a mysterious rumpling of the beds
in certain unocc1 pied rooms, one after
she other. Setting watch. she saw the
musician slipping out al o'clock one |
morning, after having slipped in unos-
tentatiously and late the previous night. |
Now | will give you two weeks free |
lodging" was her ultimatum. for she |
pitied him. 1t was all he needed. Be- |
fore two weeks had passed he had per- |
suaded two of her best boarders to take |
an apartment with him nearer the CEN |
ter of Paris" How he gave concerts in |
II is to betray one of the secrets of ''musi- |
cal life" in the colony. They all do H.
The pianist the singer or violinist goes