A Cosmopolite in A Cafe

A COSMOPOLITE IN A CAFE
A Cosmopolite in a Café AT MIDNIGHT THE CAFÉ was crowded. By some chance the little table at which
Isat had escaped the eye of incomers, and two vacant chairs at it extended their arms with venal
hospitality to the influx of patrons.
And then a cosmopolite sat in one of them, and I was glad, for I held a theory that since Adam no true
citizen of the world has existed. We hear of them, and we see foreign labels on much luggage, but we
find travellers instead of cosmopolites.
I invoke your consideration of the scene - the marble-topped tables, the range of leather-upholstered
wall seats, the gay company, theladies dressed in demi-state toilets, speaking in an exquisite visible
chorus of taste, economy, opulence or art, the sedulous and largess-loving garçons, the music wisely
catering to all with its raids upon the composers; the mélange of talk and laughter - and, if you will, the
Würzburger in the tall glass cones thatbend to your lips as a ripe cherry sways on its branch to the beak
of a robber jay. I was told by a sculptor from Mauch Chunk that the scene was truly Parisian.
My cosmopolite was named E. Rushmore Coglan, and he will be heard from next summer at Coney
Island. He is to establish a new 'attraction' there, he informed me, offering kingly diversion. And then his
conversation rang along parallels of latitude and longitude. He took the great, round world in his hand,
so to speak, familiarly, contemptuously, and it seemed no larger than the seed of a Maraschino cherry in
a table-d'hôte grape fruit. He spoke disrespectfully of the equator, he skipped from continent to
continent, he derided the zones, he mopped up the high seas with his napkin. With a wave of his hand
he would speak of a certain bazaar in Hyderabad. Whiff! He would have you on skis in Lapland. Zip! Now
you rode the breakers with the Kanakas at Kealaikahiki. Presto! He dragged you through an Arkansas
postoak swamp, let you dry for a moment on the alkali plains of his Idaho ranch, then whirled you into
the society of Viennese archdukes.Anon he would be telling you of a cold he acquired in a Chicago lake
breeze and how old Escamila cured it in Buenos Ayres with a hot infusion of the chuchula weed. You
would have addressed the letter to 'E. Rushmore Coglan, Esq., the Earth, Solar System, the Universe,'
and have mailed it, feeling confident that it would be delivered to him.
I was sure that I had at last found the one true cosmopolite since Adam, and I listened to his world-wide
discourse fearful lest I should discover in it the local note of the mere globe-trotter. But his opinions
never fluttered or drooped; he was as impartial to cities, countries and continents as the winds or
gravitation.
And as E. Rushmore Coglan prattled of this little planet I thought with glee of a great almost-cosmopolite
who wrote for the whole world and dedicated himself to Bombay. In a poem he has to say that there is
pride and rivalry between the cities of the earth, and that 'the men that breed from them, they traffic up
and down, but cling to their cities' hem as a child to the mother's gown.' And whenever they walk 'by
roaring streets unknown' they remember their native city 'most faithful, foolish, fond; making her mere-
breathed nametheir bond upon their bond.' And my glee was roused because I had caught Mr. Kipling
napping. Here I had found a man not made from dust; one who had no narrow boasts of birthplace or
country, one who,if he bragged at all, would brag of his whole round globe against the Martians and the
inhabitants of the Moon.
Expression on these subjects was precipitated from E. Rushmore Coglan by the third corner to our table.
While Coglan was describing to me the topography along the Siberian Railway the orchestra glided into
a medley. The concluding air was 'Dixie,' and as the exhilarating notes tumbled forth they were almost
overpowered by a great clapping of hands from almost every table.
It is worth a paragraph to say that this remarkable scene can be witnessed every evening in numerous
cafés in the City of New York. Tons of brew have been consumed over theories to account for it. Some
have conjectured hastily that all Southerners in town hie themselves to cafés at nightfall. This applause
of the 'rebel' air in a Northern city does puzzle a little; but it is not insolvable. The war with Spain, many
years' generous mint and water-melon crops, a few long-shot winners at the New Orleans race-track,
and the brilliant banquets given by the Indiana and Kansas citizens who compose the North Carolina
Society, have made the South rather a "fad' in Manhattan. Your manicure will lisp softly that your left
forefinger reminds her so much of a gentleman's in Richmond, Va. Oh, certainly; but many has to work
now - the war, you know.

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