Try it, friend and see! It was already getting along in
the evening, and I knew or supposed I knew no one in Kilburn save
only Bill Hahn, Socialist who was little better off than I was.
In this emergency my mind began to work swiftly. A score of
fascinating plans for getting my supper and a bed to sleep in
flashed through my mind.
"Why," said I, "when I come to think of it, I'm comparatively
rich. I'll warrant there are plenty of places in Kilburn, and
good ones, too, where I could barter a chapter of Montaigne and a
little good conversation for a first-rate supper, and I've no
doubt that I could whistle up a bed almost anywhere!"
I thought of a little motto I often repeat to myself:
TO KNOW LIFE, BEGIN ANYWHERE!
There were several people on the streets of Kilburn that night
who don't know yet how very near they were to being boarded by a
somewhat shabby looking farmer who would have offered them, let
us say, a notable musical production called "Old Dan Tucker,"
exquisitely performed on a tin whistle, in exchange for a good
honest supper.
There was one man in particular--a fine, pompous citizen who came
down the street swinging his cane and looking as though the
universe was a sort of Christmas turkey, lying all brown and
sizzling before him ready to be carved--a fine pompous citizen
who never realized how nearly Fate with a battered volume of
Montaigne in one hand and a tin whistle in the other--came to
pouncing upon him that evening! And I am firmly convinced that if
I had attacked him with the Great Particular Word he would have
carved me off a juicy slice of the white breast meat.
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