LITTLE ITALY
There are three gentlemen with whom I have been privileged, on happy occasions, to take travels in Philadelphia. The first is the Mountaineer, a tall vagabond, all bone and gristle, member emeritus of the Hoboes' Union, who can tramp all day on seven cents' worth of milk chocolate, knows the ins and outs of every queer trade and is a passionate student of back alleys and mean streets. Pawnshops, groggeries, docks and factories make his mouth water with the astounding romance of every day.
The second is the Soothsayer, an amiable visionary whose eye dotes on a wider palette. Soothsayer by profession, artist and humanitarian at heart, he is torn and shaken on every street by the violent paradoxes of his lively intellect. A beggar assaults his sense of pity—but rags are so picturesque! A vast hotel, leaking golden flame at every window against the green azure of the dusk, fascinates his prismatic eyeball—but how about the poor and humble? Treading the wide vistas of the Parkway in a sunset flush he is transported by the glory of the vision. Scouting some infamous alley of smells he would blast the whole rottenness from the earth. He never knows whether the city is a sociological nightmare or an Arabian color-box.
And the third is the Epicure. In person very similar to Napoleon the Third, late emperor of the
