For the leisure hours of these there were the innocent wine-shops of South Fifth Avenue, such as the Brasserie Pigault, which Bunner introduced to the readers of "The Midge" with a quaint conceit.

The sign of the little cafe from without read: "A LA VILLE DE ROUEN.

J.PIGAULT.LAGER BEER.

FINE WINES AND LIQUEURS." But its regular patrons knew it best from within, from the warm tables they liked to scan the letters backward, against the glass that protected them from the winter's night.

It was a quaint haunt, where gathered Doctor Peters and Father Dube, and Parker Prout, the old artist who had failed in life because of too much talent, and M.
Martin, and the venerable Potain, who had lost his mind after his wife's death, and Ovide Marie, the curly-haired musician from Amity Street.
But the prize exhibit, the _piece de resistance_ of that old Bohemia of the French Quarter to the south of Washington Square was the Restaurant du Grand Vatel in Bleecker Street.