Page:Morley--Travels in Philadelphia.djvu/255

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SEPTEMBER AFTERNOON
239

Side by side with these gentry marched two blonde waitresses from the lunch room, wearing an air of much bitterness and oilcloth aprons emblazoned


Our Employes Are NOT on Strike
All Our Help Get good wages
Some of the Waiters Want Our Women
to Quit So They May Take Their Places.


"We're doing this of our own free will," said one of these damsels to me. "These guys never worked here. Our boss gives us good money and we're not going to walk out on him." She leaned a blazing lamp toward one of the prowling picketers, an Oriental of dubious valor. I would be sorry for the envoy if the lady spreads her lunch-hooks across the area by which his friends recognize him. Almost next door to this campaigning ground is the famous postal-card shop in which one may always read the secret palpitations of the public mind. The first card I noticed there said:


Many Happy Returns of the Day
What day? Pay Day.


Arch street seemed to be taking a momentary halt for lunch. On the sunny paths of old Christ Church burying ground a few meditators strolled to and fro, and one young couple were advancing toward the wooing stage on a shady bench. The lady was knitting a sweater, the swain arguing with persuasion. The Betsy Ross House, still