MODERN BOHEMIA.

Northern Advocate, 7 May 1914, Page 2

MODERN BOHEMIA.

A STUDY IN GAY LIFE

NIGHT SIDE OF LONDON

I had been invited to one of those haunts of youth and gaiety, in the Continental style, which have begun to open their doors in London at a time when old fogeys are on their w-iy to bed, writes Phillip Gibbs in the "Daily Chronicle." Because lam not yet an old fogey, and like to glimpse ht youth and gaiety, I, stifled by yawns at half-past ten, struggled out of an easy chair, took a cup of strong coffee, and a taxi to Piccadilly Circus.

It was nearly eleven when I stood outside the Bohemian club, and the doorkeeper was surprised to see me.

"You're a bit early, ain't you?" he said, with a reproach in his voice.

My way into the Bohemian haunt was through a small door, with glass peepholes, and I found myself, as the story-writers say, in a large hall with polished boards, strewn with small dining tables, suffused with a dim yellowish light from shaded lamps, and smelling faintly of poudre d'amour and stale cigars. At one end of the room was a stage draped with velvet curtains, and below its platform was an upright piano with its back turned towards me, so that I could not see the person responsible for a queer twittering of treble notes like those of ' a drowsy bird singing its own lullaby.

"Take anything to drink, sir "

The voice belonged to a waiter standing by a pillar, with a napkin over his arm, waiting, no doubt, for the arrival of youth and gaiety.

"When my friend comes," I said, appalled at the thought of drinking in this lonesomeness.

DOZING IN THE TWILIGHT,

But when my eyes became accustomed to the tawny twilight, I saw that other people were in the room. Some of them were grouped about the piano, listening in drowsy attitudes to a sleepy, ghostlike melody, which was now being played by the invisible pianist. It seemed to put a spell upon them like a siren song, for these women's heads were nodding. I noticed how the face of one of them 1 was deadwhite, with black shadows under her closed eyes. But her lips were as scarlet as poppy petals. By her side was a stout woman with a shawl round her shoulders. Although dozing, she was knitting with lazy, needles. As I watched her she jerked her head up, shivered a little, then yawned, and spoke to a waiter who stood motion-less'a-yard away.

"Turn the lights up, won't you ? I suppose.•somebody'll come soon.

The waiter moved, clicked some buttons in the wall, and let loose a flood of brililiant radiance.

Five coloured men were discovered sitting at a long table in attitudes of great dejection, gazing at their 'banjos, concertinas, and tambourines as

though they hated them. A young man with the face of a Cockney Englishman, but the dress of a Spanish toreador, was reading an evening paper at a neighbouring table, and close to him, with her head lolling on his shoulder, was a girl in dancing dress. She was a plump, fair girl, with a full, ripe figure, and yellow hair, loosely looped over her ears; but it was a pity she was breathing through her mouth, so that she snored a little. It was a snore whicli woke her with a start. She sat up, rubbed her eyes; and gazed round the room like a child in a strange nursery.

"SOMEBODY AT LAST'

There was the unmistakable barking of a taxi-horn in the street overhead, and the stout woman, who had been knitting, gurgled a laugh.

"Blest if it isn't Somebody at last!" It was two somebodies, a middleaged man and woman, Who came through the swing-doors in a hesitating way, stared round the room with surprise at its emptiness, and then flopped rather heavily into two chairs at' a table close to my own.

"Are we too late, John?" the woman asked.

"Too early, I expect," said the man. "It'll brighten up presently, when the young people arrive."

It brightened up a little* when two more couples came—a,n elderly man ■with a big cherubic face, an extremely thin lady with a prominent backbone, and a fluff y-liaired girl with ;a shrill laugh. The cherubic man screwed an eye-glass into the crease of his cheek and called to one .of the waiters: "Hi, bring some bubbly/ young feller!" Well, after all, here was some 'gaiety. When three of four . more couples arrived, making a good dozen at the tables, the five coloured, gentlemen took up their instruments, struggled against the pessimism which had weighed them down, and took possession' of the stage. The divisible musician behind the piano crashed "himself awake 'by tremendous chords, and led an orgy of horrible sound. They were playing rag-time.

THE: "JOY" OF THE DANCE

One of the coloured, gentlemen began to sing about Ms mother. It appeared that she was weeping for him down in Tennessee. But nobody seemed to mind. A little later, after a period of uncanny silence, broken only by the shrill' giggles of the uuffy-haired girl, another coloured gentleman made a short speech, in which he said that the beautiful stage was entirely free to those ladies and gentlemen "Who inspired by the joy of life and the bewitching Tango. ;''■■ ' v",'',-,.':

But the stage was left for the Cockney toreador and the buxom dancing girl. They danced sleepily at first in drowsy circles, until suddenly the boy began, to play monkey tricks and the revealed her acrobatic training by just escaping a broken neck: Sna series of extraordinary contortions. The twelve couples scattered thinly about the great room stared at these dancers gravely an dearnestly,, as, though it were a religious ritual.

I went through the swing-doors of this modern Bohemia, and departed from this 'haunt of youth, and gaiety.