before long spit had her tripping over her high heels and laddering her tights up the seedy cobbled back streets of the more bohemian side of town ; past hooded figures squatting on grimy cardboard mats , begging for kleiner mnzen with styrofoam cups and fingerless-mittened hands , while pot-bellied mongrels swaddled in moth-eaten ex-army blankets curled up asleep by their sides .