Page:Morley--Travels in Philadelphia.djvu/279

 Eleven fifteen. The first of the typical nighthawk motors begin to appear: huge runabouts, with very long bonnets and an air of great power. One of them, a vivid scarlet with white wheels, spins briskly round the City Hall. Trills and tinklings of jazz clatter from second-story restaurants. But Chestnut street is beginning to calm down. Lights in shop windows are going off. The old veteran takes his seat on a camp-stool near Juniper street and begins to tingle his little bell merrily. If you drop something in his box, he will tell you the sign of the zodiac under which you were born, prognosticate your lucky days and planetary hours and advise you when to take a journey. He explained to me that this happened to be the night of Venus. I had been sure of it already after some scrutiny of the pavements. As the lights are dimmed along the street, the large goldfish in a Chestnut street cafe window grow more placid and begin to think of a little watery repose.

Half-past eleven. The airy spaces round the City Hall are full of a mellow tissue of light and shadow. The tall lamp standards are like trees of great pale oranges. The white wagons of the birchbeer fleet are on their rounds. The seats where the band concerts are held are deserted save for one meditative vagrant, drooping with unknown woes. Swiftly flowing cars flit mysteriously round the curve and bend into the long expanse of North Broad street where their little red stern-lights twinkle beneath the row of silver arcs