Evening public ledger. [volume] (Philadelphia [Pa.]) 1914-1942, 1919-02-21

THERE are three gentlemen with whom /
L have been privileged, on happy occasions,
to take travels in Philadelphia. The first Is
the Mountaineer. a tall vagabond. all bone
and ~gristle, member emeritus of the Hoboes'
Union, who can tramp all day on seven cents
worth of milk chocolate. knows the ms ana
outs of every queer trade and Is a passionate
student of back alleys and mean streets
Pawnshops. groggeries. docks and factories
make his mouth water with the astounding
romance Of every day. =
The second is the Soothsayer. an amiable
visionary whose eye dotes on a wider palette.
Soothsayer by profession. artist and humans
tartan at heart, he is torn and shaken on
every street by the violent paradoxes of his
lively intellect. A beggsr assaults his sense
of pity-but rags are 80 picturesque! A
vast hotel. leaking golden flame at every
window against the green azure of the dusk.
ascinates his prismatic eyeball-but how
about the poor and humber Treading the
wide yistas of the Parkway In a sunset
flush he Is transported by the glory OF the
vision. Scouting some infamous alley OF
smells he would blast the whole rottenness
from the earth. He never knows whether the
city is a sociological nightmare or an Ara
bian color-boX. 80
And the third il the Epicure. In person
very similar to Napoleon the Third, late en-
peror of the French, some mysterious tine
ture Of the Mediterranean moves In his
strictly Saxon blood. A man Of riotous and
ungovernable humor. frequently hating on
the streets until his paroxysms OF outrageous
mirth will permit further locomotion. the
only thing he never laughs at is food. He
sees the city not as a vast social riddle, nor
as a network Of heavenly back-alleys. but as
a waste of irrelevant architecture, dotted
Ao-n anl sharo With nQ aaS nf RoOd meals.
Mention some spot in the city and his eye
will. brighten like a newly sucked glass mar
BILE. Oh, yes he cries. that's Just round
the corner from the Cafe Pancreas, where
they have those admirable ortolans |" To eat
a meal in company with the Epicure Is like
watching a great artist at work; He studies
the menu with the bitter concentration of a
sculptor surveying the block of marble from
which the statue is to he chiseled. He does
not assassinate his appetite at one swoop
with mere sum total OF victuals. He gently
woos 1t to humiliation, so that he himself
can hardly tell Just at what point 1t dies.
He eats with the skill and cunning of a
hampton chess player, foregoing a soup or
an entree in the calculating spirit of Lasker
| or Marshall, who sacrifices pawns In order
| to execute some coup lsewher on the board.
| Walters, with that subtle Instinct Of theirs.
know as soon as they see that delicately
| rounded figure enter the sale a manger, that
here is a man to be reckoned with.
/ XTOU may ina stDeI uen, my privilege In
being able 10 accompany the Epicure the
other day TO the Italian market at Ninth and
| Christian streets, where he purposed to look
over the stalls. It was,a day Of enhancing
suhlight,f when all. that lively district Of
Ijttle Italy leaped and trembled In the full
ness OF light and appetising fluent air. One
saw a secret pathos in the effort to reproduce
in the Nat DUH streets of a foreign city some
| thing OF the color and inirth Of Mediter-
rsnean soii. One often wonders what fan
"a site dream or i1lusion-was II only a steam
| shin poster?-ied so many. citizens of the
~Iovei,eyt land on earth to forsake their blue
hills and opal Valleys TO people the cheerless
byways OF American towns? What does
Little Italy think Of us and our climate in
the raw, bitter days OF a, western winter?
We'll. now that the letters are speeding home-
ward telling of the unbelievable approach of
nrohibition'N there will be few enough Of
those brisht-eyed Immigrants!
.rHRrsTIAN STREET breathes the Italian
III genius for good food, After lunchinx in
a weii-known Italian restaurant on Cath
arine street, where the Epicure instructed
me In the mysteries OF gnocchi. frittura
mista. rognone. scailopini al marsala and
mat marveiouGly potent clear coffee which
seem. 10 the uninstructed TO taste more like
vine than coffee, and has a curious Skinner
NJ ~reen round the rim of the LIQUID, we
strciled among the pavement stalls OF the
little market II seems 70 me. Just from .
cursory study ef the exhibit. that the secret