New-York tribune. [volume] (New York [N.Y.]) 1866-1924, 1915-05-02
By KATE MAsTERsoN.

T<dE Uneseorted Lady was ordering her
dinner in the Purple Palm Room.
II Hungarian band was playing a gypsy
barcarole. Malmason pinks nodded
over the carafes and reflected their fragrant
pink shadows in the crystal.
A prince, incognito, from Alsace-Lorraine,
bent above her chair with pad and pencil
taking the order.
"Are the artichokes very nicer" she asked
softly.
The Head Waiter looked across the room,
deep In conscientious pause, before reply
ing.
"Do YOU mean the French artichokes% he
asked, almost fearfuly
Eyes" she gasped with instant decision, as
though announcing a verdict; cold with
vinaigrette sauce"
The waiter bowed as one deferring to an
edict and departed silently. Immediately
man at the next table bent across his plate
and clutched the edge of the table looking at
the Unescorted Lady as though requesting
continuation of her condolences
But she consulted pocket mirror that was
chained to her wrist, and the orchestra burst
forth with the "Marseillaise."
Life in the large hotels is becoming mar
vellously melodramatic affair. The houses
that used to be the familiar lounging places OF
the somewhat ovcrdressed and bored men
and women who were so constantly on view
in the corridors have sprung into new and
significant vitality.
VISIBLE EVIDENCE HERE THAT
THERE'S WAR SOMEWHERE.
Europe has sent over an army of Its float
ing population-the idlers, the MASTERS, the
poets, the painters and horde of Secret Ser
vice men and women who are posing in all
kinds of picturesque ways.
Some are socialists; some are settlement
workers Others are suffragettes. There are
Burns men and women, Pinkertons in Grand
Army hats. There are passwords, high signs
and pale faces.
Harold MacGrath, Oppenheim and Bobbs-
Merrill seem to have led army of roman
ticists into the middle of Broadway.
One-half the earth cannot be engaged in
deadly battle without the other half feeling it,
We feel it here in town in our enlarged bread
lines, our high prices for loaves and our army
of the unemployed
But In the upper strata-the hotel crowds
fve-dollars-a-day people-it seems to perme-
ate the air with the revolutionary currents that
Richard Harding Davis loves so to put in his
South American stories
If you even speak the word French you will
find that number of bright-eyed, smiling
persons are watching you as you go to your
room OF apartment.
If you discuss anything being made in Ger
many you are likely TO have safe drop on
YOU If the tailor who acts as a visiting valet
clasps you warmly by the hand when he
brings home your wistaria waistcoat you must
show all your teeth and wink the left eye.
THE AIR HAS THE THICKNESS OF A
GABORIAU TALE.
In fact. the air is thick with mystery. There
are so many crooks posing as detectives ana
detectives posing as crooks that the two are
indstinguishable There are make-ups' as
euises. a sort of college boy detective emana-
ton. and every suspender, be II ever so num-
bic. wears tin badge Of some sort.
Some old wiseacres of thirty-odd prognosti-
cat. that we are already at war but we don't
know il. Others whisper that Billy Sunday
Is but an ernissary of the Kaiser, who is com
ing on 70 eat Us up when we are safely re-
ligionized.
Others say right out that they don't know
what Il Is all about, but that life is just one
dav after another. Now in hotels all this seq
regates into sections-streets, lanes, hoors'
cupolss
Every one knows of the famous Peacock Al
lev and its nearby neighbor, Alimony Row
We have all been through them.
But do we all know of the Street OF the
Oiled Eyebrows, not far from Madison Square
the gay little Divorce Colony that lives IN
the turrets Of one of our high studio buildings
that u supposed to be vegetating In Reno1