Argosy (UK), January 1955 — page 87: what you’re looking at

Machine-transcribed from the original scan — historical spelling and the odd misread are preserved.

85 SS _—— Readers of ** The Snow Goose” and “* The Small Miracle” will recognize the sweet-sad flavour and the masterly touch of Paul Gallico in this extract from his haunting new story of Paris—the Paris of the street carnivals, with all its shabby gatety, tts heart-break, and its hopes. The sun-washed days were warm, but the nights still cold and often windy. By day, Paris played at summer; the children appeared with their nurses by the Rond Point, the scent of per- fumed women lingered on the boulevards, the gay shops glittered in the sunlight; the sky was a canopy of that particular blue that seems to exist only over France. But in the evening, the chill drove people off the streets. It was for this reason that the early-season street carnival beyond the Pont de Neuilly was preparing to pack up and depart in disap-- pointment, for it had expected to do most of its business after dark. Only a few hardy stragglers defied the chill breeze and hung about as swings, whip rides, dodgems, stages, and tents began to - come down. By morning, nothing but the litter in the street and the worn patches on the earth at the side of the broad avenue would indicate where the fair had been. In the draughty, outdoor, canvas-enclosed square that served the shivering girls of the tawdry Moulin Bleu Revue as a dressing-room, Mouche, having surrendered the scanty bits of costume that had been lent her, donned her clothes and reflected for the last time upon the collapse of her hopes. The cheap strip show was packing to move on to Saint Ger- main, but she had not been good enough to keep even this job and go along. At the conclusion of the final performance that night the manager had discharged her, saying, ‘‘ Too thin, too thin, my child. Our girls run more to meat and juice. I heard someone in the audience say of you, ‘ Here comes that little plucked chicken again.’ Sorry, comicloooks.comn)