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And there, in the sight of all the passengers, the old habitué of the opera and the common soldier kissed each other. The one satisfaction that the French blind have is in counting the number of Boche they have slaughtered. "In that raid ten of us killed fifty," one will say; "the memory makes me very happy."
Binkley was the gay boy of the boarding-house. He was forty-nine, and owned a fishstall in a downtown market. But after six o'clock he wore an evening suit and whooped things up connected with the beaux arts. The young men said he was an "Indian." He was supposed to be an accomplished habitué of the inner circles of Bohemia.
"As you see," Hunterleys replied. The little man smiled his thanks, seated himself with a sigh of content and ordered coffee from a passing waiter. "Monsieur is doubtless a stranger to Monte Carlo?" "It is my second visit only," Hunterleys admitted. "For myself I am an habitué," the little man continued, "I might almost say a resident. Therefore, all faces soon become familiar to me.
In his own American language JOHN WEAVER pictures the feelings of an old-time saloon habitué when his former friend the barkeep, now rich from bootlegging, with a home "on the Drive" and all that, declares his socially-climbing daughter quite too good for this particular "Old Soak's" son. Weaver's retrospect of "Bill's Place" will bring damp eyes to the unregenerate: "So neat!
But when the stranger, looking straight into her eyes, told her that from the likeness he thought she must be Miss Kite's younger sister, but much prettier, it became a laugh instead: and that evening the golden-haired Miss Kite disappeared never to show her high-coloured face again; and what perhaps, more than all else, might have impressed some former habitue of Forty-eight Bloomsbury Square with awe, it was that no one in the house made even a passing inquiry concerning her.
I am told by an old habitue with whom I have had endless talks and who has taught me much, although he is a graceless rascal, that one man owns eight of these large establishments, and that he and his family live in respectability and wealth. I have no reason to doubt his statement, for these places are mines of wealth, but the owners take precious good care not to live in them.
I should not dare to penetrate alone into a private bar; when I do enter a private bar it is invariably under the august protection of an habitue, and it is invariably with the idea that at last I am going to see life. Often has this illusion been shattered, but each time it perfectly renewed itself. So I followed the bold Mr Brindley into the private bar of the Tiger.
Just what creates the intense desire for tobacco to the habitue has not been quite decided, but probably it is a combination of the irritation in the throat, especially in inhalers; of the desire for the rhythmic puffing which is a general cerebral and circulatory stimulant; for the increased vasomotor tension which many a patient feels the need of; for the narcotic, sedative, quieting effect on his brain or nerves; for the alluring comfort of watching the smoke curl into the air or for the quiet, contented sociability of smoking with associates.
As soon, however, as the pressing needs of the moment are satisfied, a period of luxurious idleness follows, and rest seems to be the chief desideratum of the average habitue or employe.
So many successive seasons had he passed there before 1914 that across at the rooms the attendants and croupiers knew him as an habitué, and he was always granted the carte blanche the white card of the professional gambler. With nearly half the people he met he had a nodding acquaintance, for friendships are easily formed over the tapis vert and as easily dropped.
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