100 poinsettias, 50 cyclamens, 100 primroses, 100 carnations, 12 hydrangeas, all in pots. And there are requisitions posted for wires and shackles, for anchors and propellers, for chemicals and talcum powder and vast radio towers to be erected at a naval base in France. War, you see, is not all a matter of powder and shot. If you are ever tempted to wonder what the Government does with the Liberty Loans, go up to the Federal Building and look over a few of those invitations for bids posted on the bulletin boards.
Ninth street, as I said, often seems to me the most alluring street in town. Perhaps it is because of certain bookshops; perhaps it is because at a table d'hôte restaurant above Market street I first learned the pleasant combustion of cheap claret and cigarettes ignited by the spark of youthful converse. To these discoveries of a dozen years ago I am happy to add others; for example, that the best spaghetti I have ever eaten is served on Ninth street; and that there is a second-hand bookstore which is open at night. Nor am I likely to forget a set-to with sausages and corncakes and sirup that I enjoyed on Ninth street the other evening with the Soothsayer. We had been motoring in the suburbs, a crisp and bravely tinted October afternoon, and getting back to town after 8 o'clock as hungry as bolshevik commissars, we entered into the joy of the flesh in a Ninth street hash cathedral. Here and now let me pay tribute to those blissful lunch rooms that stay open late at
