hoists. Barrels are rolling out of wagons. Crates are being lifted in. Is
the exchange never to stop? Is no warehouse satisfied with what it has?
English, which until now you judged a soft concordant language, shows here
its range and mastery of epithet. And all about, moving and jostling the
boxes, are men with hooks. One might think that in a former day Captain
Cuttle had settled here to live and that his numerous progeny had kept the
place.

Often I ride on a bus top like a maharajah on an elephant, up near the
tusks, as it were, where the view is unbroken. I plan this trip so that I
move counter to the procession that goes uptown 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.