Evening star. [volume] (Washington, D.C.) 1854-1972, 1910-02-19

each other at distance of about five
PAGES. The women in the restaurant be-
gan to squeak. We all had a sort of a
hunch that it wasn't going to be SO ter
r1bly serious. but shucks, they weren't
going to actually pull guns, were they,
the crazy Frenchmen?
They certainly were. They did pull
guns. The guns they pulled were those
little Fourth-of-July five-cent things that
fire the paper caps. you know. They both
adjusted, with great deliberateneSs. paper
caps on their guns, both all the time con-
versing to themselves in terms of violent
anger.
They took the regular side-wise dueling
attitude. and. while the third Frenchman.
standing alongside. gave the one-two-
three count and then the word "Firer'
why, they just fired their little nickel
paper-cap guns at each other as cute as
anything, the sounds of the explosion re-
minding one of the scratching of a parlor
match.
Then they tossed their guns on to the
table and rushed frantically into each
others arms. crying Mon enfant!' and
Mon amir and all that lovely stuff as
they embraced each other enthusiastically.
They then sat right down at their table
and resumed their conversation where
they had left it off in order to fight their
paper-cap duel.
1t wasn't such bad fooling, really con-
sidering the audience and the two-o'clock
notwithstanding and all that sort of
thing. 1t was an ee-normous hit with the
bunch at the tables, who demanded an
encore, but the nickel-gun duelists didn't
come over with a repetition.
A STILL more naturalistic. if less sem
"A sational, stunt is performed almost
nightly (morningly, l should say at an
other of the 9th avenue restaurants.
Over In one Of the corners of the main
dining room of this restaurant sits an
elderly man. with white hair and a very
rubicund, vinous countenance. CThe
booty look on his face is make-up.) He
Stimulates sousedness with extreme skill.
You are bound to take him, when first
you take notice of him, for an elderly
party ''out for a good time" as they
say when folks get out for a bad time.
He seems to be picked just little bit
over the eyebrows, If not even more so.
and the rapidity with which he orders
ders are cocktails. He seems to be or
dering one of 'em about every three or
four minutes, and he refuses to permit
his waiter to remove his cocktail glasses.
because, he says, audibly and sousefully,
that he wants. at the finish, to count
up how many cocktails he has had.
When the table at which he sits is all
covered over with cocktail glasses the
stewed old boy (as You take him to bel
begins to ,tinkfe- tinkle on his array of
cocktail -gIassex-yftht the end Of his knife
blade He seems to be merely expert
menting with sounds. But you notice.
not without wonder. that the cocktail
glasses, though they are all of a size.
: give out different notes.
: After q while, seeming to improve by
practice, the gay old party picks out a
tune on the glasses. Then he picks up
another knife. and with the two knife
ends he begins to play perfectly roll
licking ragtime tune. You have begun
to suspect the dodge by this time but
it has been so we'll worked up that the
fun Is just good when you have pene
trated the heart Of the mystery.
Swaying over the glasses, which he ar
ranges on the table before him, and
seeming to be barely able to keep on his
pins on account of the cocktails he has
folded under his weskit, the old boy The
really is quite young man, out of vode-
veel perfectly made up) proceeds to pass
from the ragtime stuff to more ambitious
music, and then the orchestra takes up
the tune with him, and the first thing
you know he is handing you the march
from .Tannhauser" and nifterinos of that
sort perfectly played, and the clinking
glasses making a mighty appealing lit
tie brand of music.
At one Of the all-night restaurants
little above Longacre Square they have