Page:Morley--Travels in Philadelphia.djvu/256

 trailing its faded bunting and disheveled wreaths, looked more like an old curio shop than ever. One wishes the D. A. R. would give it a coat of paint and remove the somewhat confused sign POUR PATRIA. A little further on one finds a sign

This reference to nautical pleasures brought it to my mind that I had never enjoyed a voyage on the palace ferries of the Vine street crossing, and I moved in that direction. On Front above Arch one meets the terminus of the Frankford L, a tangle of salmon-colored girders. Something perilous, I could not see just what, was evidently going on, for a workman in air shouted, "Watch yourself!" This terse phrase is one of the triumphs of the American language, as is also the remark I heard the other evening. It referred to a certain publican who conducts a speak-easy at an address I shall not name. This publican had apparently got into an argument solvable only by the laying on of hands, and had emerged bearing an eye severely pulped. "Some one's been workin' on him," was the comment of one of his customers.

Watching myself with caution, I dodged down the steep stairs by which Cherry street descends from Front to Delaware avenue. In the vista of this narrow passage appeared the sharp gray bow