And they come a-running and get it.  Under the circumstances it requires self-hypnotism of a high order, and plenty of it, to make an American think he is enjoying himself.  Still, he frequently attains to that happy comsummation.  To begin with, is he not in Gay Paree?—­as it is familiarly called in Rome Center and all points West?  He is!  Has he not kicked over the traces and cut loose with intent to be oh, so naughty for one naughty night of his life?  Such are the facts.  Finally, and herein lies the proof conclusive, he is spending a good deal of money and is getting very little in return for it.  Well, then, what better evidence is required?  Any time he is paying four or five prices for what he buys and does not particularly need it—­or want it after it is bought—­the average American can delude himself into the belief that he is having a brilliant evening.  This is a racial trait worthy of the scientific consideration of Professor Hugo Munsterberg and other students of our national psychology.  So far the Munsterberg school has overlooked it—­but the canny Parisians have not.  They long ago studied out every quirk and wriggle of it, and capitalized it to their own purpose.  Liberality!  Economy!  Frugality!—­there they are, everywhere blazoned forth—­Liberality for you, Economy and Frugality for them.  Could anything on earth be fairer than that?

Even so, the rapturous reception accorded to a North American pales to a dim and flickery puniness alongside the perfect riot and whirlwind of enthusiasm which marks the entry into an all-night place of a South American.  Time was when, to the French understanding, exuberant prodigality and the United States were terms synonymous; that time has passed.  Of recent years our young kinsmen from the sister republics nearer the Equator and the Horn have invaded Paris in numbers, bringing their impulsive temperaments and their bankrolls with them.  Thanks to these young cattle kings, these callow silver princes from Argentina and Brazil, from Peru and from Ecuador, a new and more gorgeous standard for money wasting has been established.  You had thought, perchance, there was no rite and ceremonial quite so impressive as a head waiter in a Fifth Avenue restaurant squeezing the blood out of a semi-raw canvasback in a silver duck press for a free spender from Butte or Pittsburgh.  I, too, had thought that; but wait, just wait, until you have seen a maitre d’hotel on the Avenue de l’Opera, with the smile of the canary-fed cat on his face, standing just behind a hide-and-tallow baron or a guano duke from somewhere in Far Spiggottyland, watching this person as he wades into the fresh fruit—­checking off on his fingers each blushing South African peach at two francs the bite, and each purple cluster of hothouse grapes at one franc the grape.  That spectacle, believe me, is worth the money every time.