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Despite the cold, every seat and every table on the terraces of the cafés are occupied. Past the terraces surges the crowd, casting confetti at the glasses of beer, coffee and liqueurs, which the consumers have carefully covered over with saucers. But, always unconquerable, the confetti enters the glasses; and thus one drinketh benedictine à la confetti, and chartreuse à la confetti, and——

“Who wants a nose? Who wants a nose?” shouts a hawker, holding up a collection of long, vivid red noses. And the red noses are bought; and so, too, are false beards and moustaches, and artificial eyebrows, and huge cardboard ears.

Then, what costumes in the crowd! Of course, any number of pierrots and clowns, who gesticulate and grimace; and ladies in dominoes, and men in heavy scarlet mantles and black masks. Over there, an Arab; here, a Greek soldier in the Albanian kilt—the picturesque “fustanella.” And confetti—red, blue, yellow, green, white, orange, purple—sprinkled over, and clinging to, all these different costumes, and flying above them and all around them, a fantastic spectacle!