He
trots off there very happily when his light work is done, and, when
his door is closed, opens it for no one. That scrap of a building is
_Castagna's_ castle. One evening I went to call on him, but he had put
out his light. In the gleam that came from the bowling alley behind
me, something showed softly red and green and white against the wooden
door. I put out my hand and touched that world-famous cross. It was
about six inches long, and only of paper, but it was the flag of
Italy, and it kept watch outside the _Casa Castagna_. I am certain
that he would not sleep well without it.
Probably the most famous Bohemian restaurant in the quarter is the
Black Cat. It is not really more typical than the others,--indeed it
is rather less so,--but it is extremely striking, and most
conspicuous. There is, in the minds of the hypercritical, the sneaking
suspicion that the Black Cat is almost too good to be true; it is too
obviously and theatrically lurid with the glow of Montmartre; it is
Bohemianism just a shade too much conventionalised.
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