The Waterbury Democrat., 1946-01-05

There are moments of magic on Canal Street in the early morning hours. It is the interval between night and day when time is but an embryo. The tenements and ware houses and factories appear lumin- escent like the scenes painted by French impressionistic artists. The street lights have just been turned of and the air is cloudy gray and streaked with silver and is cool and fresh like you would imagine it to be should you find yourself in a cloud.
 The street is quiet and stilled. An occasional cat traverses the road way and disappears into an alley where night still lurxS; or a droWzy dog, still stiff with sleep. appears stretches and sniffs at the points of the compass at nothing in particular unless it be life, in general. And If you stand on this narrow thor oughfare at such a time you feel as though all the world was confin- ed there and you were familiar with it with a sure knowledge.
 Standing there at this time most any morning you would see in shape less appearance, in the distance, a small figure walking toward you with . lurching motion. In the half light it would be difficult to deter mine from where 1t had emerged; 1; one of the many buildings to be cer- tain = or so you would reason; but then it's appearance would confute such logic. Perhaps out the other world the imagination 90 often dwells upon.
 You would question whether 1t was the gray light of the time that gave to it the shapelesS yet many shaped appearance. At one time 1t would appear short and chunky and a tthe next thin and stopped; as 1t came closer you would see it was the variety of ill-fitting clothing 1t wore which caused this fantasy.
 Pants too big and baggy which shifted into multiduniouS forms as it walked, changing the shape of It's legs into twirling gyrations as though each was multi-colored spinning pole. Coat too long and full which the breeze hustled into and puffed out giving 1t the ap- pearance of a paunch heavy indi- vidual, or else caught and streamed 1t away from its body outlining a thin short torso. Shoes with the character of a marching army. A hat which must have coursed the history of felt hats since first they were created and has reverted to the or iginal clump of felt from which the original designer first worked. A large basket is slung owed the shoul- der.
 The approaching foot sounds heard on the dawn-cold street as 1t neared you have the quality of an aimless shuttle, perhaps heard be- fore among the faceleSS wanderers who cross broad lands without des- tiny or purpose or hope.
 Then 1t is near and you see the face. And 1t jolts you. For there is written all the cynical laissez falre ever conjured by man since first he was given the instinct of self-pre- servation. It Is the face of thou sand and more characters all of them formed into one deeply Sculp-  tured mask of harmless cynicism. It is the face of a jester without a king.
 The eyes look upward into yours They seem without conscious thought as though the mind had re- nounced conscious thinking some time past and now had balanced it's existence on the soul-less quality Of sheer instinct.
 There is a gesture toward the basket slung over the shoulder and the voice speks, plantively and di- rectionless;
 'Everting for a nickla."
 It is Gumba. The mendicant merchant.
 Gumba is well-known to the down. town Waterbury merchants, business men and more frequent wayfarers. In his basket is to be found an as-