The Main Streets I know do not strike me as a fit subject for commiseration.

Nothing in America is more reassuring than the fact that some one is always wailing in the market-place. When we’ve got something and don’t like it, we wait for some one to tell us how to get rid of it. Plunging into prohibition, we at once become tolerant of the bootlegger. There’s no point of rest.

Myself when young did eagerly frequent.

Odd as these statements look, now that I have set them down, I hasten to add that they stir in me no deep and poignant sorrow. My feeling about the business is akin to that of a traveller who has missed a train but consoles himself with the reflection that by changing his route a trifle he will in due course reach his destination without serious delay, and at the same time enjoy a view of unfamiliar scenery.

We do not know but that in some far day a prowling New Zealander.