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THE EXOTIC DRINKI N G BOOK
their trim, exquisite figures poured into the scabbard-like split dresses
of pastel silk that so elegantly suit their type. A brace of snipe-legged
little Japanese men with
f.
2
Leicas swinging around their necks, half–
inch thick eyeglasses,
Bat
straw hats, muttering urgently at each other
without the slightest trace of faci al expression. A Javanese girl-mother
with her naked brown babe swi nging in a butterfly tinted sarong tied
above her hips and tucked in with a cunning woman's twist. A Bud–
dhist priest from far back in the wild hill country back of beyond, in his
funny hat and worn robe dyed three centuries ago
in
a yellow hue
which would be mellow and fair a century after its present owner was
dust. T wo short, plump, short-skirted French girls giggling, looking
us squarely in the eye before continuing other inspection-totally
without self-consciousness or inhibition as they audibly speculated on
our origin, age, marital state and capitalistic solvency in a machine gun
undertone of rapid French. This is just the briefest vignette of Saigon.
Before quitting this subject of absinthe perhaps we had better ex–
plain that taken in steady doses over a considerable period of time, it
does nibble the keen edge off the brain until a man becomes a sorry
sort of thing; aimless, listless, and generally-shockingly-lacking.
This, and the habit it forms under constant usage, of course accounts
for its ban in France. Actually, too, it happens to be one of the few
liqueurs which more or less definitely stimulates the cavaliers riding
herd about the altar of Aphrodite.
An Absinthe Drip isn't one of the black arts at all; nor something
confined to Maupassant, and mystery, and low and devious dives all
coagulated with
apaches,
and their
grisettes,
and sitting around all
hours of the night with drooping cigarettes in the corners of their
mouths, and long hair drooping in
the~r
eyes, and long knives up
their sleeves.... The cute, almost doll-like Annarnese bar-man took
a small thin tumbler, nearly the size and shape of our Old Fashioned
Cocktail glass. This he centered up with
2
cubes of sterilized ice, a
lump of loaf sugar. Onto this he turned a jigger of absinthe. A tiny
pitcher of cold water was supplied, this to be poured in
1
drop at a
time, or at guest option, ladled in with a small teaspoon. . . . Under
. 9.