Page:Our Philadelphia (Pennell, 1914).djvu/498

478 side as it is by the advance of the sky-scraper. The old-fashioned busy Philadelphia crowds, as I remember them, could still take their time in the streets, so that I remember, too, my friend, George Steevens' astonishment because a passer-by he thanked for information could linger to say "You are very welcome." The old-fashioned Philadelphia business, going on at a pace that only New York and Chicago could beat, was still accomplished with so little fuss that the rest of America laughed at Philadelphia for its slowness and sleepiness, and told those old time-worn stories that have passed into folk-lore. It was just this that gave Philadelphia such a distinct character of its own—that it could be laughed at for slowness and sleepiness by the other towns, and all the while be sleepy and slow to such good purpose as to make itself into one of the most prosperous and influential in the country: to be able to work at the American pace and yet preserve its dignity and sedateness.

But the old stories have lost what little point they had. Philadelphia does not look slow and sleepy any longer. Things have changed, indeed, when a modern traveller like Mr. Arnold Bennett can speak of "spacious gaiety" in connection with Philadelphia—with its spacious dulness the earlier traveller was more apt to be impressed. At last, however, it has given up its country-town airs for the airs of the big town it is—given up the calmness that was its chief characteristic for the hurry-flurry of the ordinary American town. And there is scarcely a Philadelphian