STREET NOISES AND GAMES
Our "fleet" of rooms is the noisiest place in town. And that is saying something. One night long after midnight I sat at one of these windows in my sleeping outfit looking at the crowd (yes, a crowd), thinking and trying to count the different noises. I was also thinking about my creditors, and how I was now getting closer and closer to them, and sooner or later, I'd have to face them. Well, what I have remaining in money value is getting pretty low. As to the noises, I got up to 14 but there are lots more than that. The honks, street cars and newsboys drown out the culls and low grade noises.
As Aura May has disappeared more and more from her father's side, he has ventured more and more in the marts of trade and commerce. About the first venture here was into the banana situation. I had seen push carts of fruit everywhere. Close observation, at a discreet distance, disclosed customers bought, peeled and ate the fruit and then dropped the peels in a receptacle on the cart. I could do that. I did.
Lightning calculation disclosed I was paying about two cents American each for the biggest ones. A young Indian had preceded me. I offered him one. He accepted. Word got over the grape vine. My clientele increased, and there we stood blithely peeling and eating and aiming at the waste basket. Aura May would have been ashamed for me. When a client missed, I cut him off the list. They caught onto that easily although no English was spoken except by me. The adventure cost me a full 90 cents. Try having fun buying 90 cents worth of bananas back home.