For good fortune, visitors to Rome throw coins in a fountain. In China, they rub their hands on the head or the tail of turtle statues. But in Cuba's capital, there's a new custom: to stroke the sculpture of the "Gentleman from Paris."

For good fortune, visitors to Rome throw coins in a fountain. In China, they rub their hands on the head or the tail of turtle statues. But in Cuba's capital, there's a new custom: to stroke the sculpture of the "Gentleman from Paris."

Locals and foreign tourists alike routinely stop at the bronze statue by the San Francisco Church in colonial Havana seeking luck. Touch the gentleman's index finger for prosperity, some say; caress his beard to return one day to Havana.

"It really works. I did it the last time I was in Cuba, and look, I'm back," said Pedro Gomez, 53, of Guadalajara, Mexico, admiring and rubbing the gentleman again during a recent Havana visit.

So many people stroke the life-size statue while making wishes that the dark patina has worn off its index finger and beard, revealing a golden metal that glistens in the sun.

Cuban girls celebrating their 15th birthdays regularly show up in rented gowns to take pictures with the two-tone gentleman, gingerly holding his hand and even puckering up to kiss his metal cheek. Photographers insist the contact brings good luck.

"All the girls who turn 15 do it," said an exuberant and giggly Yisel Pinon, posing with a shiny tiara and a white, layered dress that looked like a wedding cake. "I don't know why."

In real life, the man immortalized as the Gentleman from Paris was neither noble nor French. He was a well-spoken vagabond, originally from Spain, who roamed Havana wearing dark clothes and a cape and often made drawings or other gifts for those he met.

"He could talk on any topic, never used vulgar words, drew things just as they were, and never begged," said Milagros Lopez, 45, a psychologist who knew the gentleman before his death at a Cuban mental hospital in 1985. "He was kind to everyone."

The statue of the long-haired man with folded papers under his arm apparently is cleaner than the original. Lopez recalls him with a more scraggly mane, a less elegant nose, a longer cape and much more dirt - though somehow he "never smelled or attracted flies."

How the good-natured vagabond got his noble name remains as much a mystery as how he became a lucky shrine.

He was born Jose Maria Lopez Lledin in Spain's Lugo province in 1899 and moved to Cuba in 1913. He once said he took his title from a French novel. Others claim romantic roots - of his love from Paris who died at sea, or a Cuban woman schooled in France who dressed him in silks, took him to theaters and later abandoned him.

What's generally agreed upon is that Lopez began wandering the streets after being jailed in 1920 for a crime he didn't commit. (The nature of the crime remains in dispute.) With his fluent musings and generosity, he earned the affection of city dwellers, even appearing on TV shows.

In 1977, a sympathetic doctor placed the 78-year-old in a psychiatric hospital, where he was cared for until his death eight years later.

But Havana's official historian, Eusebio Leal, who has led the impressive restoration of the colonial zone, could not let the "Gentleman" rest in his grave.

Leal had the Spaniard's bones exhumed and placed inside the San Francisco Church. The statue by sculptor Jose Villa Soberon was added outside the church in 2001.

Tour guides apparently invented the good-luck stories later, perhaps impressed that a kindly vagabond could be reborn.

Yet even locals who know the story behind the statue and the tall tales guides make up for tourists stop and stroke the statue, too.

"Christ had no money and wandered, and everyone wanted to touch him. It's the spirit that brings good fortune," said engineer Jorge Agustin Rodriguez, 53, after rubbing the sculpture on a recent weekday afternoon.

"We all have a little imagination in us," said Rodriguez. "And besides, there's nothing to lose."