in the late afternoon. Is
there a scene like it in the world? The boulevards of Paris in times of
peace are hardly so gay. Fifth Avenue is blocked with motor cars. Fashion
has gone forth to select a feather. A ringlet has gone awry and must be
mended. The Pomeranian's health is served by sunlight. The Spitz must have
an airing. Fashion has wagged its head upon a Chinese vase--has indeed
squinted at it through a lorgnette against a fleck--and now lolls home to
dinner. Or style has veered an inch, and it has been a day of fitting. At
restaurant windows one may see the feeding of the over-fed. Men sit in club
windows and still wear their silk hats as though there was no glass between
them and the windy world. Footmen in boots and breeches sit as stiffly as
though they were toys grown large and had metal spikes below to hold them
to their boxes. They look like the iron firemen that ride on nursery
fire-engines. For all these sights the bus top is the best place.

And although we sit on a modest roof, the shopkeepers cater to us. For in
many of the stores, is there not an upper tier of windows for our use? The
commodities of this second story are quite as fine as those below. And the
waxen beauties who display the frocks greet us in true democracy with as
sweet a simper.

My friend G---- while riding recently on a bus top met with an experience
for which he still blushes.

There was a young woman sitting directly in front of him, and when he came
to leave, a sudden lurch threw him against her. When he recovered his
footing, which was a business of some difficulty, for the bus pitched upon
a broken pavement, what was his chagrin to find that a front button of
his coat had hooked in her back hair! Luckily G---- was not seized with a
panic. Rather, he labored cautiously--but without result. Nor could
she help in the disentanglement. Their embarrassment might have been
indefinitely prolonged--indeed, G---- was several blocks already down the
street--when he bethought him of his knife and so cut off the button. As he
pleasantly expressed it to the young woman, he would give her the choice of
the button or the coat entire.

Reader, are you inclined toward ferry boats? I cannot include those persons
who journey on them night and morning perfunctorily. These persons keep
their noses in their papers or sit snugly in the cabin. If the market is
up, they can hardly be conscious even that they are crossing a river.
Nor do I entirely