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Updated: June 12, 2025
Crowds of people were dining at little tables which filled the streets off the quay, in spite of the awful smells which came up from the harbour. It is impossible to sleep late in Salonika. Soon after dawn children possess the town bootblacks, paper-sellers, perambulating drapers' shops; all children crying their wares noisily.
Imagine, then, that "clamor of Salonika" increased by the rumble and roar over the huge paving-stones of thousands of giant motor-trucks; by the beat of the iron-shod hoofs of cavalry, the iron-shod boots of men marching in squads, companies, regiments, the shrieks of peasants herding flocks of sheep, goats, turkeys, cattle; the shouts of bootblacks, boatmen, sweetmeat venders; newsboys crying the names of Greek papers that sound like "Hi hippi hippi hi," "Teyang Teyang Teyah"; by the tin horns of the trolley-cars, the sirens of automobiles, the warning whistles of steamers, of steam-launches, of donkey-engines; the creaking of cordage and chains on cargo-hoists, and by the voices of 300,000 men speaking different languages, and each, that he may be heard above it, adding to the tumult.
But that is of less account as also was the information imparted to me as secretary of the committee by our late Tammany mayor and may he be the last that we had "as much authority as a committee of bootblacks in his office" it is all of less account than the fact that the field has at last been studied and its needs been made known.
O'Reilly in the last chair grunted and swore musically in ancient Gaelic as a razor bit into his cheek. Two bootblacks became wide-eyed and rushed for her feet. No, Bernice didn't care for a shine.
Those in charge of military lodgings furnished by the inhabitants also made large profits. At Dresden could be seen Parisian tailors and bootmakers, teaching the natives to work in the French style. Even bootblacks were found on the bridges over the Elbe, crying, as they had cried on the bridges of the Seine, "Shine your boots!"
As they bathed and dressed more carefully than they had dressed for the early-morning start, strange sounds came up from the square below, which was full of people, laughing, quarrelling, playing games, striking bargains, singing songs. Arab bootblacks clamoured for custom at the hotel-door, pushing one another aside, fiercely.
It must have been several minutes that he stood contemplating the entrance and the luxurious couples who went in. "Plumb French!" he observed at length; and then, "Shucks!" in a key less confident, while his guests ten feet away watched him narrowly. "They're eatin' patty de parley-voo in there," he muttered, and the three bootblacks came beside him.
Brokers, poets, millionaires, bootblacks, beauties, hod-carriers and politicians become little black specks dodging bigger black specks in streets no wider than your thumb. From this high view the city itself becomes degraded to an unintelligible mass of distorted buildings and impossible perspectives; the revered ocean is a duck pond; the earth itself a lost golf ball.
We were at once and profoundly interested by the negro life which flowered here in the free air of the District as under an African sun; the newsboys, the bootblacks, the muledrivers, all amused us. We spent that first night in Washington in a little lodging house just at the corner of the Capitol grounds where beds were offered for twenty-five cents.
Here, waiter!" A waiter answered the summons. "What is it, sir?" "Just remove my plate to another table, will you?" "Is anything the matter, sir?" "I am not accustomed to associate with bootblacks," said the clerk loftily. "All right, sir." "I am really surprised that you admit any of that low class." "As long as they pay their bills we are willing to receive them."
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