that you could
easily light a cigarette at, and firmly under the impression that the
whole population of the district is watching him. When he does get
to the right place he has forgotten his name and address and is in a
general condition of hopeless imbecility. Asked in a severe tone how he
came by "this," he stammers and contradicts himself, and it is only a
miracle if he does not confess to having stolen it that very day. He is
thereupon informed that they don't want anything to do with his sort,
and that he had better get out of this as quickly as possible, which he
does, recollecting nothing more until he finds himself three miles off,
without the slightest knowledge how he got there.

By the way, how awkward it is, though, having to depend on public-houses
and churches for the time. The former are generally too fast and the
latter too slow. Besides which, your efforts to get a glimpse of
the public house clock from the outside are attended with great
difficulties. If you gently push the swing-door ajar and peer in you
draw upon yourself the contemptuous looks of the barmaid, who at once
puts you down in the same category with area sneaks and cadgers. You
also create a certain amount of agitation among the married portion of
the customers. You don't see the clock because it is behind the door;
and in trying to withdraw quietly you jam your head. The only other
method is to jump up and down outside the window. After this latter
proceeding, however, if you do not bring out a banjo and commence to
sing, the youthful inhabitants of the neighborhood, who have gathered
round in expectation, become disappointed.

I should like to know, too, by what mysterious law of nature it is that
before you have left your watch "to be repaired" half an hour, some one
is sure to stop you in the street and conspicuously ask you the time.
Nobody even feels the slightest curiosity on the subject when you've got
it on.

Dear old ladies and gentlemen who know nothing about being hard up--and
may they never, bless their gray old heads--look upon the pawn-shop
as the last stage of degradation; but those who know it better (and my
readers have no doubt, noticed this themselves) are often surprised,
like the little boy who dreamed he went to heaven, at meeting so many
people there that they never expected to see. For my part, I think it a
much more independent course than borrowing from friends, and I always
try to impress this upon those of