How delightfully childish it all is. In order to sell chocolate one man had taken off his coat and had put on his head an irresponsible looking opera hat!
In side streets I came on a bicycle market. I wondered how many were doped like racehorses. A stray bicycle found carelessly outside a house becomes something quite different with the aid of a paint pot! How many old crocks had been dressed up with new lamps and saddles I would not care to say! Here trade was booming. I saw a man who had bought a dog, a birdcage, and a pair of pink braces, treat himself to a pair of handle-bars. It must be wonderful to wander through Bagdad like this, meeting things on the way, living an hour full of infinite possibilities, not knowing whether you will arrive home with a bullfinch or a bicycle! After watching this market closely I realize this: people do not go there to buy things, but to have things sold to them!
* * *
On the way out I saw something worth while. A melancholy bull pup sitting in the road with all the world's troubles in his eyes was picked up by a little girl.
"I want him because he looks so unhappy."
A chauffeur in a green coat paid out five shillings.
"Darling ... darling," said the girl, holding the squat little body.
They took him to a motor-car that had been left round the corner. So he left a street corner in Bagdad to be a prince among pups.
Kismet!