and she will tactfully strike up “It’s Always Fair Weather” when she sees a crowd of young fellows sit down at a table; “There’ll Be a Hot Time in the Old Town Tonight” to welcome a lad in khaki; and the very latest fox trot for the party of girls and young men from uptown, who look as though they were dying to dance.  She plays the “Marseillaise” for Frenchmen, and “Dixie” for visiting Southerners, and “Mississippi” for the frequenters of Manhattan vaudeville shows.  And, then, at the right moment, her skilled fingers will drift suddenly into something different, some exquisite, inspired melody—­the soul-child of some high immortal—­and under the spell the noisy crowd grows still for a moment.  For even at the Black Cat they have not forgotten how to dream.

Probably the Black Cat inspired many other Village restaurants—­the Purple Pup for instance.

The Purple Pup is a queer little place.  It is in a most exclusive and aristocratic part of the Square—­in the basement of one of the really handsome houses, in fact.  It is, so far as is visible to the naked eye, quite well conducted, yet there is something mysterious about it.  Doubtless this is deliberately stage-managed and capitalised, but it is effectively done.  It is an unexpected sort of place.  One evening you go there and find it in full blast; the piano tinkling, many cramped couples dancing in the two tiny rooms, and every table covered with tea cups or lemonade glasses.  Another night you may arrive at exactly the same time and there will be only candlelight and a few groups, talking in low tones.

Here, as in all parts of the Village, the man in the rolling collar, and the girl in the smock, will be markedly in evidence.  Yes; they really do look like that.  Lots of the girls have their hair cut short too.

And “Polly’s”!

In many minds, “Polly’s” and the Village mean one and the same thing.  Certainly no one could intelligently write about the one without due and logical tribute to the other.  Polly Holliday’s restaurant (The Greenwich Village Inn is its formal name in the telephone book) is not incidental, but institutional.  It is fixed, representative and sacred, like Police Headquarters, Trinity Church and the Stock Exchange.  It is indispensable and independent.  The Village could not get along without it, but the Village no longer talks about it nor advertises it.  It is, in fact, so obviously a vital part of Greenwich that often enough a Greenwicher, asked to point out hostelries of peculiar interest, will forget to mention it.

“How about ’Polly’s’?” you remind him.

“Oh—­but ’Polly’s’!” he protests wonderingly.  “Why, it wouldn’t be the Village at all without ‘Polly’s.’  It—­why, of course, I never thought anyone had to be told about ’Polly’s’!”

His attitude will be as disconcerted as though you asked him whether he was in the habit of using air to breathe,—­or was accustomed to going to bed to sleep.