l give you a shilling for it," he says, and
with that money in my hand and my fiddle under my arm I squeezed past
the entry-port and went ashore. It was like a dream--meadows, trees,
flowers, birds, houses, and people all different! I sat me down in
a meadow and fiddled a bit, and then I went in and out the streets,
looking and smelling and touching, like a little dog at a fair. Fine
folk was setting on the white stone doorsteps of their houses, and
a girl threw me a handful of laylock sprays, and when I said "Merci"
without thinking, she said she loved the French. They all was the
fashion in the city. I saw more tricolour flags in Philadelphia than
ever I'd seen in Boulogne, and every one was shouting for war with
England. A crowd o' folk was cheering after our French Ambassador--that
same Monsieur Genet which we'd left at Charleston. He was a-horseback
behaving as if the place belonged to him--and commanding all and sundry
to fight the British. But I'd heard that before. I got into a long
straight street as wide as the Broyle, where gentlemen was racing
horses. I'm fond o' horses. Nobody hindered 'em, and a man told me it
was called Race Street o' purpose for that. Then I followed some black
niggers, which I'd never seen close before; but I left them to run after
a great, proud, copper-faced man with feathers in his hair and a red
blanket trailing behind him. A man told me he was a real Red Indian
called Red Jacket, and I followed him into an alley-way off Race
Street by Second Street, where there was a fiddle playing. I'm fond
o' fiddling. The Indian stopped at a baker's shop--Conrad Gerhard's
it was--and bought some sugary cakes. Hearing what the price was I was
going to have some too, but the Indian asked me in English if I was
hungry. "Oh yes!" I says. I must have looked a sore scrattel. He opens
a door on to a staircase and leads the way up. We walked into a dirty
little room full of flutes and fiddles and a fat man fiddling by the
window, in a smell of cheese and medicines fit to knock you down. I was
knocked down too, for the fat man jumped up and hit me a smack in the
face. I fell against an old spinet covered with pill-boxes and the pills
rolled about the floor. The Indian never moved an eyelid.

'"Pick up the pills! Pick up the pills!" the fat man screeches.

'I started picking 'em up--hundreds of 'em--meaning to run out under the
Indian's arm, but I came on giddy all over and I sat down. The fat man
went b