She moved as might a monarch approaching the opening of some great show,  preceded by a minion leading a miniature poodle.

She stopped, surveying her realm left and right, squatted and delicately placed three perfectly formed turds on the satin granite pavement.  No hurry.

Her minion waited ahead, indifferent to the Ritz doormen who feigned not noticing her indiscretion.

The standard poodle rose like a filling spinnaker, full of self-importance and padded on with careless graceful steps deigning to look neither left or right.

One white-gloved doorman withdrew to the telephone in arrears and delegated the unpleasantness to the Mairie – who delegated the job to a north African more appropriately positioned for the actual removal of the faecal treasures now adorning the forecourt.

This girl knew social ordure.  She knew her place – elevated by the wealth of her owner; above the niceties and social graces of polite company.  She was Canus aristocraticus and that was that.  Her minion knew his place too.  Minions of lesser beings – perhaps the bourgeoisie would be expected to scoop, bag and withdraw everything except their dignity – the ghost of which would remain there on the pavement.   But not this chap.  He was not a groveller to mere doormen, Ritz or no Ritz.  They were just draft stoppers in plush uniforms they didn’t even own, (but for which they paid their own laundry costs) and he was not obligated to treat them with anything greater than the poodle’s disdain.

The doormen were practiced nose downlookers and they adored exercising their imagined status by applying their stonewalling indifference on rubber necked passers-by.  Even Dolce and Gabbana-clad bling monsters.  No, particularly D&G bling monsters.  Gold was not class and bling was certainly not class.  You may park your Maserati momentarily here sir.  I’m sorry sir, but we just don’t have the space for sir’s BMW.

It was not their job to doff a white glove, don a rubber glove and abduct a Richard the Third.  But they were growing concerned at the time being taken by the Mairie’s man to appear.  They conferred.  There were discrete utterances from corners of mouths, cheesy smiling at residents entering and leaving the hotel and subtle body language suggesting that sir and madame might prefer an upwind route for the moment.

It was decided.  The youngest doorman – perhaps a doorboy was despatched and returned at a clip with an empty poubelle which he gently placed upended over the still steaming pile.  This had the effect not so much of warding passers by off or preventing them from stepping in the offending ordure, but it seemed to create a kind of public exhibit.  Passers by gathered to see the Ritz’s latest piece of installation art.

The Mairie’s  emergency van arrived.  Out sprang two men in blackface in overalls with brooms.  The tall one approached the upturned bin with due caution.  The short one pushed back the growing crowd.

The tall man carefully lifted the upturned bin, placed it on his head – helmet like, tapped the ground twice with the end of his broom stick.  The short man stood next to him and eyed the doormen.  He tapped his broomstick twice on the ground … and sang “If you’re blue and you don’t know where to go to, Why don’t you go to where fashion shits ?  Put one on the Ritz…….”

Editor’s Note:  The Ritz is a fine organisation and no way does Emmjay or anyone vaguely resembling Emmjay have any hard feelings just because they closed the Hemingway Bar and denied him a nostalgia dry martini.  But some of this story is true.  We are led to believe that the faecal matter was removed but according to Emmjay, not while he was there.