Page:Morley--Travels in Philadelphia.djvu/51

 alley that runs under the archway horses stand munching their nosebags, while a big yellow coal wagon, lost in the cul-de-sac, tries desperately to turn around. The three big horses clatter and crash on the narrow paving. A first edition of "Rudder Grange" for fifteen cents wasn't a bad find. (I saw it listed in a recent bookseller's catalogue for $2.50.) By prying up a flyleaf that had been pasted down I learned that "Uncle George" had given it to Helen L. Coates for "Xmas, 1880."

Up at the Arch street corner is the famous Dumont's Minstrels, once the old Dime Museum, where Frank Dumont's picture stands in the lobby draped in black. Inside, in the quaint old auditorium, the interlocutor sits on his throne and tosses the traditional jest back and forth with the end men, Bennie Franklin and Alf Gibson, clad in their glaring scarlet frock-coats. The old quips about Camden are still doing brave service. Then Eddie Cassady comes on in his cream-colored duds and sings a ditty about Ireland and freedom while he waves the banner with the harp. Beneath the japes on prohibition there is an undertone of profound sadness. Joe Hamilton sings a song which professes to explain that July 1st will be harder on the ladies than any one else. "Good-by, Wild Women, Good-by," it is demurely called. Joe Hortiz gets "Come Back to the Farm" over the footlights, a plaintive tenor appeal, in which the church steeple chimes 3 (a. m.) and all the