a touch of whimsy

Stephen's Green Cafe in the mid afternoon.
Dublin hot and clammy and unutterably alive.
The whimsical smiler is at a table nearby.
Occasionally she glances at me in a most mischievous manner.
She's been here most days this week smiling just like this. She is, in the best sense of an old fashioned Irish phrase, a handsome gerrul.
I cannot imagine that I will ever talk to her.
So here we are.
There is a pulse in the universe.
The ghost of Walt Whitman appears at my shoulder.
"The women are beautiful," he whispers. "But the old are more beautiful than the young."
I nod briefly.
"Yes Walt," I reply. "But I fancy the young."