never to criticise, brimming with anecdotes and adventures of forty years of experience . . . he had all the warmth of his blazing logs in his grasp and all the snap of their coals in his eyes.

"By the Gods, but I'm glad to see you!" was his invariable greeting. "Draw up! draw up! Go get a pipe— the tobacco is in the yellow jar."

This was when Mac was alone or when no one had the floor, and the shuttlecock of general conversation was being battledored about.

If, however, Mac or any of his guests had the floor, and was giving his experience at home or abroad, or was reaching the climax of some tale, it made no difference who entered no one took any more notice of him than of a servant who had brought in an extra log, the lost art of listening still being in vogue in those days and much respected by the occupants of the chairs-by all except Boggs, who would always break into the conversation irrespective of restrictions or traditions. . . .

4. George Washington Cable (1844- ) is a native of New Orleans where he has spent most of his life, though he now lives in the North. He has won distinction in the literary world through his Creole stories, which are unique in the realm of American letters. He also ranks high as a poet.

CAFÉ DES EXILÉS

(From Old Creole Days)

An antiquated story-and-a-half Creole cottage sitting right down on the banquette, as do the Choctaw squaws who sell bay and sassafras and life-everlasting, with a high, close board-fence shutting out of view the diminutive garden on the southern side. An ancient willow droops over the roof of round tiles, and partly hides the discolored stucco, which keeps dropping off into the garden as though the old café was stripping for the plunge into obliviondisrobing for its execution. I see, well up in the angle of the broad side gable, shaded by its rude awning of clap

boards, as the eyes of an old dame are shaded by her wrinkled hand, the window of Pauline. Oh, for the image of the maiden, were it but for one moment, leaning out of the casement to hang her mocking-bird and looking down into the garden,-where, above the barrier of old boards, I see the top of the fig-tree, the pale green clump of bananas, the tall palmetto with its jagged crown, Pauline's own two orange-trees holding up their hands toward the window, heavy with the promises of autumn; the broad crimson mass of the many-stemmed oleander, and the crisp boughs of the pomegranate loaded with freckled apples, and with here and there a lingering scarlet blossom.

The Café des Exilés, to use a figure, flowered, bore fruit, and dropped it long ago—or rather Time and Fate, like some uncursed Adam and Eve, came side by side and cut away its clusters, as we sever the golden burden of the banana from its stem; then, like a banana which has borne its fruit, it was razed to the ground and made way for a newer, brighter growth. I believe it would set every tooth on edge should I go by there now, now that I have heard the story, and see the old site covered by the "Shoo-fly Coffee-house." Pleasanter far to close my eyes and call to view the unpretentious portals of the old café, with her children for such those exiles seem to me-dragging their rocking-chairs out, and sitting in their wonted group under the long, out-reaching eaves which shaded the banquette of the Rue Burgundy.

It was in 1835 that the Café des Exilés was, as one might say, in full blossom. Old M. D'Hemecourt, father of Pauline and host of the café, himself a refugee from San Domingo, was the cause-at least the human cause of its opening. As its white-curtained, glazed doors expanded, emitting a little puff of his own cigarette smoke, it was like the bursting of catalpa blossoms, and the exiles came like bees, pushing into the tiny room to sip its rich variety of tropical sirups, its lemonades, its orangeades, its orgeats, its barley-waters, and its outlandish wines, while they talked of dear home-that is to say, of Barbadoes, of Martinique, of San Domingo, and of Cuba.

There were Pedro and Benigno, and Fernandez and Francisco, and Benito. Benito was a tall, swarthy man, with immense gray moustachios, and hair as harsh as tropical grass and gray as ashes. When he could spare his cigarette from his lips, he would tell you in a cavernous voice, and with a wrinkled smile, that he was "a-t-thortyseveng."

There was Martinez of San Domingo, yellow as a canary, always sitting with one leg curled under him, and holding the back of his head in his knitted fingers against the back of his rocking-chair. Father, mother, brother, sisters, all, had been massacred in the struggle of '21 and '22; he alone was left to tell the tale, and told it often, with that strange infantile insensibility to the solemnity of his bereavement so peculiar to Latin people.

But, besides these, and many who need no mention, there were two in particular, around whom all the story of the Café des Exilés, of old M. D'Hemecourt and of Pauline, turns as on a double centre. First, Manuel Mazaro, whose small, restless eyes were as black and bright as those of a mouse, whose light talk became his dark girlish face, and whose redundant locks curled so prettily and so wonderfully black under the fine white brim of his jaunty Panama. He had the hands of a woman, save that the nails were stained with the smoke of cigarettes. He could play the guitar delightfully, and wore his knife down behind his coat-collar.

The second was "Major" Galahad Shaughnessy. I imagine I can see him, in his white duck, brass-buttoned roundabout, with his sabreless belt peeping out beneath, all his boyishness in his sea-blue eyes, leaning lightly against the door-post of the Café des Exilés as a child leans against his mother, running his fingers over a basketful of fragrant limes, and watching his chance to strike some solemn Creole under the fifth rib with a good old Irish joke.

5. Joel Chandler Harris (1848-1908) was a Georgia writer whose name became identified with his creation Uncle Remus, the teller of tales of Brer Rabbit and Brer Fox, which are the delight of all children.

THE STORY OF THE DOODANG

(From Uncle Remus and the Little Boy.)

"I wish," said the little boy, sitting in the doorway of Uncle Remus's cabin, and watching a vulture poised on motionless wing, almost as high as the clouds that sailed by "I wish I could fly."

The old man regarded him curiously, and then a frown crept up and sat down on his forehead. "I'll tell you dis much, honey," he said, "ef eve'ybody wuz ter git all der wishes, de wide worl' 'ud be turned upside down, an' be rollin' over de wrong way. It sho would!" He continued to regard the little boy with such a solemn aspect that the child moved uneasily in his seat on the door-step. "You sho does put me in min' er de ol' Doodang dat useter live in de mud-flats down on de river. I ain't never see 'im myse'f, but I done seed dem what say dey hear tell 'er dem what is see 'im.

"None un um can't tell what kinder creetur de Doodang wuz. He had a long tail, like a yallergater, a great big body, four short legs, two short y'ears, and a head mo' funny lookin' dan de rhynossyhoss. His mouf retched from de een er his nose ter his shoulder-blades, an' his tushes wuz big 'nough, long 'nough, an' sharp 'nough fer ter bite off de behime leg uv a elephant. He could live in de water, er he could live on dry lan', but he mos❜ly wallered in de mud-flats, whar he could retch down in de water an' ketch a fish, er retch up in de bushes an' ketch a bird. But all dis ain't suit 'im a tall; he got restless; he tuk ter wantin' things he ain't got; an' he worried an' worried, an' groaned an' growled. He kep' all de creeturs, fur and feather, wide awake fer miles aroun'.

"Bimeby, one day, Brer Rabbit come a-sa'nterin' by,. an' he ax de Doodang what de name er goodness is de matter, an' de Doodang 'spon' an' say dat he wanter swim ez good ez de fishes does.

"Brer Rabbit say, 'Ouch! you make de col' chills run up an' down my back when you talk 'bout swimmin' in

de water. Swim on dry lan' ol' frien'-swim on dry lan'!'

"But some er de fishes done hear what de Doodang say, an' dey helt a big 'sembly. Dey vow, dey can't stan' de racket dat he been makin' bofe day an' night. De upshot uv de 'sembly wuz dat all de fishes 'gree fer ter loan de Doodang one fin apiece. So said, so done, an' when dey tol' de Doodang about it, he fetched one loud howl an' rolled inter shaller water. Once dar, de fishes loant 'im eve'y one a fin, some big an' some little, an' atter dey done dat, de Doodang 'skivver dat he kin swim des ez nimble ez de rest.

"He skeeted about in de water, wavin' his tail fum side ter side, an' swimmin' fur an' wide; Brer Rabbit wuz settin' off in de bushes watchin'. Atter while de Doodang git tired, an' start ter go on dry lan', but de fishes kick up sech a big fuss, an' make sech a cry, dat he say he better gi' um back der fins, an' den he crawled out on de mudflats fer ter take his nap.

"He ain't been dozin' so mighty long, 'fo' he hear a mighty big fuss, an' he look up an' see dat de blue sky wuz fa'rly black wid birds, big an' little. De trees on de islan' wuz der roostin' place, but dey wuz comin' home soon so dey kin git some sleep 'fo' de Doodang set up his howlin' an' growlin', an' moanin' an' groanin'. Well, de birds ain't mo'n got settle', 'fo' de Doodang start up his howlin' an' bellerin'. Den de King-Bird flew'd down an' ax de Doodang what de nam' er goodness is de matter. Den de Doodang turn over in de mud, an' howl an' beller. De King-Bird flew'd aroun', an' den he come back, an' ax what de trouble is. Atter so long a time, de Doodang say dat de trouble wid him wuz dat he wanted ter fly. He say all he want wuz some feathers, an' den he kin fly ez good ez anybody.

"Den der birds hol' a 'sembly, an' dey all 'gree fer ter loan de Doodang a feather apiece. So said, so done, an' in a minnit er mo' he had de feathers a-plenty. He shuck his wings, an' ax whar 'bouts he mus' fly fer de first try.

"Brer Buzzard say de best place wuz ter de islan' what