f an Italian who went through the streets somewhere on
Leavenworth, calling, "Nica fresha flowers," and from the opposite side
of the street a Chinaman with flowers would call, "Samee over here." All
went well until the Chinaman began to outsell the other, when the
Italian remonstrated. "Yella for yourself, see," he said, to which the
Chinaman answered, "Go to hellee," and went on as before.

This story was told to me by very reliable eye witnesses. The buff
cochin rooster and the huge negro and all the others I saw myself. And
many other strange things which I have not room to write, I saw in that
spot where Chinatown merges into the Latin quarter.

The Pepper and Salt Man

He was a man, I should say about sixty years old, a most uninteresting
age, and a homely, weather-beaten fellow too, when you stopped to look
at him. His suit was pepper-and-salt, and he was just like his suit.
Good as gold, I have no doubt, a roomer of whom his landlady could say:
"He comes and he goes and is never a speck of trouble."

Still, he might have been as good as Saint Anthony but no one would ever
have noticed him except for what happened. What happened wasn't so much
either but it was enough to illumine that dun, common-place man so that
everyone in the side-seating trolley was suddenly aware of his presence.
What happened was ten months old and was a girl.

A regular girl, one hundred per cent feminine. One could tell just by
the way she wore her clothes, by her daintiness, by the tilt of her
bonnet and by the way smiled out from under it. I can't describe a baby
girl any more than I describe a sunset or moonlight or any of the
wonders of God--I can only say that she was everything that a baby girl
should have been.

When she entered with her mother we all edged and crowded over but the
pepper-and-salt man won. Down she sat close beside him. Then you should
have seen that man, the foolish, old fellow. He turned toward her; he
beamed; he mentally devoured her; he never took his eyes off her long
enough to wink.

When she seemed about to turn her restlessly bobbing head toward him,
his hands moved and the strong muscles of his face worked in excitement.
Then, when she smiled his way and for an instant there was a flash of
tiny, milk teeth, that man, the old silly, made the most dreadful facial
contortion, something between a wink, a smile, a booh and a grimace.

Then when she turned from him he sat there eating her up. I