Amid the usual stream of shoppers, diners and coffeeholics there emerged a rather scruffy, forlorn looking fellow carrying the many bags of different sizes one usually associates with folks down on their luck and of no fixed abode.

Besides his muttering of unintelligible phrases, two other things made this bloke stand out even more amid this tranquil cafe society setting. Visible in his many bags of many colors was an assortment of at least a dozen foot-long breadsticks.

I can only assume that he availed himself to these after they had been left outside the doors of local diners and coffee shops by bakers making their early morning deliveries. This is a common sight in early morning Melbourne. The honor system usually prevails with the bakers’ goods remaining undisturbed on their doorsteps until the shop owner opens for business. Well apparently not this time. Allegedly of course!

Adding to this odd sight, our bedraggled breadstick bloke was also attempting, with very little success, to roll a cigarette one-handed. This left a trail of cigarette papers and tobacco that he duly spat along the footpath. He was Melbourne’s version of Hansel and Gretel minus the bread crumbs replaced with cigarette papers and spittle adorned tobacco.

Like most of my fellow Melburnians, rather than confront him for his transgressions I gave a wry smile and bemused shake of the head. After all, what harm was he doing other than allegedly stealing the breadsticks, denying honest shopkeepers of their livelihood and profusely littering the streets with his tobacco-laced, potentially tuberculous-ridden spittle! My Aussie/Irish convict forebears would have been proud at my still intact convict sense of justice and bonhomie for a fellow motley straggler in this thing we called life.