At Babeta's table they talk again about molecular physics, phonolites, christalloids, music and art. Dogs and Scandinavian literature are taboo. And every time Prosper enters the place Babeta feels uneasy, as though he owes him an explanation. THE PROFESSOR Orchard Street beams on Houston Street and ends on Canal Street, near the Manhattan Bridge. But this street is better known to our foreign population than any other thoroughfare, not excluding Fifth Avenue or even Broadway. The reason for such renown is to be found in the reputation of Orchard Street as a market for everything under the sun. From before sunrise to late in the night both sides of the street are lined with double rows of pushcarts from which all sorts of wares are sold to the passer-by. From Houston to Rivington Street the space is exclusively reserved for edibles; meat, fish, vegetables, bread and fruit is sold in the open air by howling venders to bargaining customers, each one yelling his offer on the top of his voice; quarreling, disputing, cursing, using what is most spicy in the gutters of the street lingo. There are also stores on Orchard Street, but they are used only as storage houses and for rainy days. Otherwise the owner of the store displays his merchandise on the width of the sidewalk, just leaving a goatpath for the customers, as they do in Calcutta, in Constantinople, or in Nijni Novigorod since all times. But the market of edibles ends on the corner of Rivington Street. From there to Canal Street, Orchard pushcarts carry merchandise of a different character. On one pushcart are four hundred dollar fur coats, water-bottles and furniture polish, and on the next one is a medley of all kinds of ten-cent jewelry sold for "only a penny a piece." And you never can tell what may be on the next pushcart. One day, silk shirts and the next day rubber boots or marble statues. At some other time "genuine" cut glass and a day later Syrian rugs, old coats, pants, socks, watches, soap, a phonograph, or, for a diversion, a player-piano is brought on the sidewalk and tried in the open. It is the good old Bazaar so dear to Eastern people the world over; the Bazaar which gives an opportunity to outwit, outbargain, and outcheat one another. The vender always swears by the heads of his wife and children that the merchandise costs him more than he asks for, and there is play and sport to let the customer go away and watch and recognize in his gait and the way he holds his head whether he expects to be called back. It is sport to watch him stop and turn his head to offer a few cents more. Then, the merchant makes believe he does not hear him. Sure that he had reached the bottom, the customer returns to the pushcart, fingers over the thing he wants to buy, pays, and is happy. One cannot purchase such happiness in a one-price store.