A visiting Englishman on his way
from his boat to his hotel dropped in at a certain place for a drink.
He found the company congenial and drifted into a little game which
further interested him. It was a perfectly straight game, and he was a
perfectly good sport. He stayed there two weeks. No: I shall _not_
state what the place was. But I think the story is true.
Personally, I don't blame the Englishman. Even shorn of the charm of a
game of chance, there is many a place in Greenwich Village which might
easily capture a susceptible temperament--not merely for weeks, but
for years!
The last of the tea shops is the "Wigwam," in which, take note, it is
the Indian game that is played. Its avowed aim is "Tea and Dancing,"
and it is exceedingly proud of its floor. It lives in the second story
of what, for over fifty years, has been the old Sheridan Square
Tavern, and its proprietors are the Mosses,--poet, editor and
incidental "pirate" on one side of the house; and designer of
enchanting "art clothes" on the other. Lew Kirby Parrish, no less, has
made the decorations, and he told me that the walls were grey with
Indian decorations, and the ceiling a "live colour.
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