I have wondered why Chinese restaurants are generally on the second story.  A casual inquiry attests it.  I know of one, it is true, on the ground level, yet here I suspect a special economy.  The place had formerly been a German restaurant, with Teuton scrolls, “Ich Dien,” and heraldries on its walls.  A frugal brush changed the decoration.  From the heart of a Prussian blazonry, there flares on you in Chinese yellow a recommendation to try “Our Chicken Chop Soy.”  The quartering of the House of Hohenzollern wears a baldric in praise of “Subgum Noodle Warmein,” which it seems they cook to an unusual delicacy.  Even a wall painting of Rip Van Winkle bowling at tenpins in the mountains is now set off with a pigtail.  But the chairs were Dutch and remain as such.  Generally, however, Chinese restaurants are on the second story.  Probably there is a ritual from the ancient days of Ming Ti that Chinamen when they eat shall sit as near as possible to the sacred moon.

But hold a bit!  In your haste up town to find a place to eat, you are missing some of the finer sights upon the way.  In these windows that you pass, the merchants have set their choicest wares.  If there is any commodity of softer gloss than common, or one shinier to the eye—­so that your poverty frets you—­it is displayed here.  In the window of the haberdasher, shirts—­mere torsos with not a leg below or head above—­yet disport themselves in gay neckwear.  Despite their dismemberment they are tricked to the latest turn of fashion.  Can vanity survive such general amputation?  Then there is hope for immortality.

But by what sad chance have these blithe fellows been disjointed?  If a gloomy mood prevails in you—­as might come from a bad turn of the market—­you fancy that the evil daughter of Herodias still lives around the corner, and that she has set out her victims to the general view.  If there comes a hurdy-gurdy on the street and you cock your ear to the tune of it, you may still hear the dancing measure of her wicked feet.  Or it is possible that these are the kindred of Holofernes and that they have supped guiltily in their tents with a sisterhood of Judiths.

Or we may conceive—­our thoughts running now to food—­that these gamesome creatures of the haberdasher had dressed themselves for a more recent banquet.  Their black-tailed coats and glossy shirts attest a rare occasion.  It was in holiday mood, when they were fresh-combed and perked in their best, that they were cut off from life.  It would appear that Jack Ketch the headsman got them when they were rubbed and shining for the feast.  We’ll not squint upon his writ.  It is enough that they were apprehended for some rascality.  When he came thumping on his dreadful summons, here they were already set, fopped from shoes to head in the newest whim.  Spoon in hand and bib across their knees—­lest they fleck their careful fronts—­they waited for the anchovy to come.  And on a sudden they were cut off from life, unfit,