Let us arouse a snoring cabman and make the rounds. Why not? All merrymaking is shot through with youth, no matter how dolorous the joy or how expensive the indulgence. So let us partake of the feast before us. Our first encounter is with the Tabarin, in the Annagasse, an establishment not unlike the Bal Tabarin in Paris. We hesitate at the entrance, but being assured by the doorkeeper, garbed like Louis Seize, that it is "_ein äusserst feines und modernes nacht etablissement_" we enter, partake of a bottle of champagne (thirty kronen--New York prices) and pass out and on to Le Chapeau Rouge, where we buy more champagne. From there we go to the Rauhensteingasse and enter Maxim's, brazenly heralded as the Montmartre of Vienna. Then on to the Wallfischgasse to mingle with the confused visitors of the Trocadero, where we are urged to have supper. But time is fleeting. The cabmeter is going round like a tortured turbine. So we hasten out and seek the Wiehburggasse, where we discover a "Palais de Danse"--seductive phrase, suggestive of ancient orgies. But we cannot tarry--in spite of Mimi Lobner (Ah, lovely lady!) who sings to us "Liebliche Kleine Dingerchen" from "Kino-Königin," and makes us buy her a peach _bowle_ in payment. One more place and we are ready for the resort in the Prater, the Coney Island of Vienna. This last place has no embroidered name. Its existence is emblazoned across the blue skies by an electric sign reading "Etablissement Parisien." It is in the Schellinggasse and justifies itself by the possession of a very fine orchestra whose _militär-kapellmeister_ knows naught but inebriate _tanzmusik_.
Again in the open air, headed for the Kaisergarten, we reflect on our evening's search for _nachtvergnügungen_. With the lone exception of our half-hour with Mimi, it has been a sad chase. All the places (with the possible exception of the Trocadero) have been cheaply imitative of Paris, with the usual appurtenances of arduous waiters, gorgeously dressed women dancing on red velvet carpets, fortissimo orchestras, expensive wines, _blumenmädl_, hothouse strawberries and other accessories of manufactured pleasure. But compared with Paris these places have been second rate. The _damen_ (I except thee, lovely Mimi!) have not inflamed us either with their beauty or with manifestations of their _esprit gaulois_. For the most part they have been stodgy women with voluminous bosoms, Eiffel towers of bought hair--bison with astonishing hyperboles and parabolas, dressed in all of the voluptuous splendour but possessing none of the grace of the Rue de la Paix. Furthermore, these establishments have lacked the deportmental abandon which saves their prototypes in Paris from downright banality. All of their deviltries have been muted, as if the guests suffered from a pathological fear of pleasure. Strangers we were when we entered. As strangers we take our departure.