ar!" cried Brum. "You have not been to a single house, for
I have been following you all the time. You have had nothing to eat
since you came except what you have had at this camp. If it were not
for luck, young fools like you would starve. Here, take this"--and he
threw Cincinnati Slim a paper of food. The latter sat down without a
word and began to eat.




III

Daring Beggars


American beggars knock boldly at doors like kings' messengers. An
imposing mansion with marble pillars is a challenge to them, and they
dance up its steps and press the button of an electric bell with a
violence that no familiar friends of the house would dare use; but
an English beggar almost sinks into the earth when his ears receive
the report of his timid hand. In fact, except in very rare instances,
where a large house has been approached and--for a wonder--found
good, and has become famous to the begging fraternity--except in
these very rare instances, English beggars pass by large mansions as
though they were empty churches or smallpox hospitals.

I don't suppose there is a more daring or more impudent rascal on
earth than a good American beggar. It is always his boast that he
has begged an ex-president, or the present one, and he claims to
have received benefits from a number of well-known millionaires,
actors, and prize-fighters. Such proud experiences never fall from
the lips of an English beggar, for the simple reason that he lives on
the working and middle classes. A row of small cottages is of more
benefit to him than an equal number of fine villas, and he thinks
that he is in a hungry wilderness when there is nothing to be seen
but very large houses--and he is quite right.

It has always seemed strange to me that Americans, who as a race are
notoriously eager to make money, should be so generous to a beggar.
Even when they refuse it is often more on account of haste than
meanness. Not only that, but they give with such indifference, and
are never annoyed at being solicited, whether they are reading papers
on the verandahs 