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THE CITY OF THE HAPPY WELL. 17
Rich-man, Fish, Salt, Mat, Key, Pipe, Boat-bridge,
etc. The main street and the avenues are wide, but
many of the humbler thoroughfares are narrow lanes.
The shop signs amuse us. Combs, hairpins, and
switches seem to be sold in many places, as well as
looking-glasses, or, rather, round metal mirrors. The
paper, tea, and silk shops, the drug, hardware, and
book stores swing their signs, fly their flags,, or set
up their square lanterns. The shops are all open to
the street. Not a glass window is to be seen or a
house-door on hinges. All apparatus for opening
and closing slides in grooves.
Street pedlars are numerous, and their cries in-
terest us. Everything runs into doubles, and the
carrying of all burdens is by dividing the weight in
half and bearing the halves suspended by a pole
laid across the shoulder. The umbrella-coverer, the
pipe-mender, and the locksmith carry their machinery
and tools with them. "Bean-cheese, well-cooked or
"
partly fried
"
! Parboiled and soft-boiled bamboo
"
root
" "
! Pots mended ! and "
Crockery baked and
joined !
" " "
Oil and wicks " "
! Shell-fish ! Dried
" " "
fish ! Bean-sauce ! and " "
Maccaroni ! are cries
that sound on the air, as men move around to ply
their trade and to turn honest zeni, or cash, in order
to stick them on a skewer or string them, a hundred
apiece, on twine made of straw, for each brass or
iron coin has a square hole in the centre. Perhaps
the man gets his pay in paper money, that is made of
and two inches
strips of pasteboard six inches long
wide, of two, three, or six cents denomination. Then