From the day
Perspective: The Anxious Local · Sound
The rhythmic *clack-clack* of the new Lionel trains down at the hobby shop is drowned out by the shrill whistles of the newsboys shouting about the Rogers estate. My word, the Metropolitan Museum will get $5,000,000 while the heirs settle for a mere pittance, yet here I am fretting over a five-cent loaf of bread as the grit of the coal smoke settles in my throat. The air is thick with the mechanical hum of those new gasoline engines and the distant, tinny brass of "Blaze Away" drifting from a neighbor’s open window. Everything is moving too fast; with talk of transatlantic radio signals and these loud vacuum machines, I fear our quiet pockets will soon be as empty as a pauper’s purse.