ed
to relish the entrancing pallor of this crystallized Eden. One carries,
gravely, a cushion and an alarm clock. Not such a bad theory of life,
perhaps--to carry in the crises of existence a cushion of philosophy and
an alarum of resolution.

RIDGE AVENUE

One of the odd things about human beings is, that wherever they happen
to live they accept it as a matter of course. In various foreign cities
I have often been amused (as every traveller has) to see people going
about their affairs just as though it were natural and unquestionable
for them to be there. It is just the same at home. Everyone I see on the
streets seems to be not at all amazed at living here instead of (let us
say) Indianapolis or Nashville. I envy my small Urchin his sense of the
extreme improbability of everything. When he gets on a trolley car he
draws a long breath and looks around in ecstasy at the human scenery. I
am teaching him to say in a loud, clear tone, as he gets on the car,
"Look at all the human beings!" in the same accent of amazement that he
uses when he goes to the Zoo. Perhaps in this way he will preserve the
happy faculty of being surprised.

It is an agreeable thing to keep the same sense of surprise in one's
home town that one would have in a strange city. You will find much to
startle you if you keep your eyes open. Yesterday, for instance, I was
lucky enough to meet a gentleman who had stood only a few feet away from
Lincoln when he made the Gettysburg Speech. Then I found that in a
certain cafeteria which I frequent the price you pay for your lunch is
always just one cent less than that punched on the check. The cashier
explained that this always gives a pleasant surprise to the customers,
and has proved such a good advertising dodge that the proprietor made it
a habit. And I saw, in a clothing dealer's window on Ninth Street, some
fuzzy caps for men, mottled purple and ochre, that proved that the
adventurous spirit has not died in the breast of the male sex.

There is much to exercise the eye in a voyage along Ridge Avenue.
Approaching by way of Ninth Street, one sees in the window of a barber
shop the new contract that the employing barbers have drawn up with
their journeymen. This agreement shows a sound sense of human equities,
proclaiming as it does that "the owner must not do no act to injure the
barber personal earnings." It suddenly occurred to me, what I had not
thought of before, how the barbers of Great Br