The Importance of a Lone Potato Waiting cheerfully at the Customs Jotty on Nov. 17 beneath battered parasols which only just kept out the "pouring rain, was a small army of vegetable dealers, their baskets empty while they awaited the arrival of fresh stocks from Pootu Like other Shanghiailanders, they have adjusted themselves with perfection to the recent turn of events. It is far more convenient to roam the streets in. search of customers than to trek as far as the nearest market—so. they make their own markets at street comers, selling single orange, one cabbage, or even Tone potato, where formerly they would have disposed of a dozen vegetables in. one transaction. would take more than a local war" to damp the spirits of these good humoured vegetable "dealers, "who have an enviable, philosophy—simply to make the best of things as they are, It they cannot soli a dozen Potatoes to their Chinese clientele, they sell one potato, and probably manage to make a profit on the deal somehow.
Engerly they chatter among them selves as junk loads of vegetables are Drought alongside, appraising with fan expert eye the present value of the foodstuffs, bargaining with the farmers, and with each other, Humorously they examine a luscious cab-age which has grown up amid bomb Bursts In the fields of Pootung, and give their final figure. Then, with baskets full, they set elf for the streets of Shanghal—and with the present demand for vegetables, it Is not so very long before they are back at the Jetty again, their basicers empty and their pockets more than halt full,
Text read from the printed page and cleaned; old type leaves the occasional error.