"Got a match, boss?"
I gave him a match.
"Thank you, boss," and he passed on down the street.
"I seem to be 'boss' around here," I said.
This contact, slight as it was, gave me a feeling of warmth,
removed a little the sensation of aloofness I had felt, and I
strolled slowly down the street, looking in at the gay windows,
now ablaze with lights, and watching the really wonderful
procession of vehicles of all shapes and sizes that rattled by on
the pavement. Even at that hour of the day I think there were
more of them in one minute than I see in a whole month at my
farm.
It's a great thing to wear shabby clothes and an old hat. Some of
the best things I have ever known, like these experiences of the
streets, have resulted from coming up to life from underneath; of
being taken for less than I am rather than for more than I am.
I did not always believe in this doctrine. For many years--the
years before I was rightly born into this alluring world--I tried
quite the opposite course. I was constantly attempting to come
down to life from above. Instead of being content to carry
through life a sufficiently wonderful being named David Grayson I
tried desperately to set up and support a sort of dummy creature
which, so clad, so housed, so fed, should appear to be what I
thought David Grayson ought to appear in the eyes of the world.
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