Page:Morley--Travels in Philadelphia.djvu/85

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WILDEY STREET
69

those same necklaces were curing mumps and metaphysical error."

He looked at me keenly. "Oh, it's you, is it? Say, this is a bum town. Business is rotten. I'm going on to Washington tomorrow."

"Sell one to Senator Sherman," I said; and passing by the allurements of Dumont's matinee—"The Devil in Jersey: He Terrified Woodbury, but He Couldn't Scare Us"—I gained the safety of the office.


WILDEY STREET

I set out for a stroll with the Mountaineer, who knows more about Philadelphia than any one I ever heard of. He is long and lean and has a flashing eye; his swinging easy stride betrays the blood of southern highlands. He tracks down distant streets and leafy glimpses with all the grim passion of a Kentucky scout on the trail of a lynx or some other varmint. No old house, no picturesque corner or elbow alley escapes his penetrant gaze. He has secret trails and caches scattered through the great forests of Philadelphia, known to none but himself. With such a woodsman for guide good hunting was a matter of course.

The first game we bagged was a tattooing studio at 814 Summer street. Let no one say that war means a decline of the fine arts, for to judge by the photographs in the window there are many who pine to have the Stars and Stripes, the American