Page:Morley--Travels in Philadelphia.djvu/86

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70
WILDEY STREET

eagle and the shield of the food administration frescoed on their broad chests. Professor Al E. Walters, the craftsman, proclaims himself artistic and reliable in this form of embroidery and the sitter has "1500 up-to-date designs to choose from." The Mountaineer and I peered through the window and were interested to see the professor's array of tools laid out on his operating table.

Passing by an imposing bust of Homer, which we found in front of a junk shop at 528 Noble street, the Mountaineer led me to see the old Hoboes' Union headquarters at Fifth and Buttonwood streets. The war may have given tattooing a fillip, but it seems that it has been the decline and fall of philosophic hoboism, for the vagrants' clubhouse is dusty and void, now used as some sort of a warehouse. Work or fight and high wages have done for romantic loafing. The Mountaineer pointed out to me the kitchen in which the boes held their evening symposia over a kettle of hot stew. The house was donated through the munificence of J. Eads Howe, the famous millionaire hobo, and the Mountaineer admitted that he had spent many an entertaining evening there discussing matters of intellectual importance. "How did you get the entree to such an exclusive circle?" I asked enviously. "I was a member of the union," he said, with just the least touch of vainglory.

The Mountaineer led me north on Fourth street to where Wildey street begins its zigzag career. We