We sometimes went to the Closerie des Lilas, at the corner of the Boulevard St.-Martin. This was quite in the country, in the days of Henri Quatre—a sort of road house where the young bloods went to drink. The women of the court discovered this and used to go out there, disguised as milkmaids, and flirt outrageously with the tipsy members of the nobility. Alas! the lilacs are gone now and sportive milkmaids no longer frequent the place; but the Cafe des Lilas still has its stories, and in my day there was at least one interesting habitué. He was a major whom everybody knew and spoke to familiarly. He was gray bearded and must have had his title from the Franco-Prussian War. He and his cronies had the same table, played piquet, and sat for hours over their coffee. His was a _mazagran_. The first time I saw him I noticed he had a funny trick which he repeated every night. For a _mazagran_ the waiter leaves three lumps of sugar; he always used two, left the other in his saucer, and became exceedingly annoyed if, by any chance, it got wet. In his right-hand waistcoat pocket was his watch, with a great fob that went across. With the utmost deliberation, he would reach into the left-hand pocket, take out a piece of brown paper, beautifully cut into a square, and fold into it the extra lump of sugar, carefully putting the package back in his pocket again. For many nights I watched this proceeding and made up my mind that, being a thrifty Frenchman, he used it for his morning coffee. But not so. Some time after, I read in the Figaro that Major P—— who lived in Montparnasse (there was no mistaking the name and place), had died suddenly, leaving no estate and no personal effects; but behind the door of his small bedroom had been found—a cubic yard of sugar! Verlaine sometimes came to this café—Paul Verlaine; I often paid for his beer. A plain, hairy, dirty figure, seeming physically very feeble; you would not think to look at him twice except to marvel at his ugliness and disorderly appearance, unless you saw his eyes. If he looked at you, you knew you were in the presence of your better. He was worshiped by all, and they fought to pay his check, hovering about him like crows around dead carrion, waiting to snatch at anything that dropped from his lips. I was not a good student of character in those days and in no way realized his importance, but I could not help feeling his charm. One night I had a dispute with a Frenchman as to what was the meaning of courage. One of us argued that it was an admirable quality, and the other that it was vanity and stupidity—therefore, idiotic. At the height of the discussion Verlaine came in and was appealed to to decide the question. He first demanded beer and then listened carefully to one and then the other. Looking at me, he said: “I decide for the young American.” “Well, why?” asked the Frenchman. “Because you are right and he is right; you are wrong and he is wrong. But _he_ believes what he says.”