tion of going, and queried:--

"And I don't get anything to eat?"

He arose suddenly to his feet. He was a large man. I was a stranger in
a strange land, and John Law was looking for me. I went away
hurriedly. "But why ungrateful?" I asked myself as I slammed his gate.
"What in the dickens did he give me to be ungrateful about?" I looked
back. I could still see him through the window. He had returned to his
pie.

By this time I had lost heart. I passed many houses by without
venturing up to them. All houses looked alike, and none looked "good."
After walking half a dozen blocks I shook off my despondency and
gathered my "nerve." This begging for food was all a game, and if I
didn't like the cards, I could always call for a new deal. I made up
my mind to tackle the next house. I approached it in the deepening
twilight, going around to the kitchen door.

I knocked softly, and when I saw the kind face of the middle-aged
woman who answered, as by inspiration came to me the "story" I was to
tell. For know that upon his ability to tell a good story depends the
success of the beggar. First of all, and on the instant, the beggar
must "size up" his victim. After that, he must tell a story that will
appeal to the peculiar personality and temperament of that particular
victim. And right here arises the great difficulty: in the instant
that he is sizing up the victim he must begin his story. Not a minute
is allowed for preparation. As in a lightning flash he must divine the
nature of the victim and conceive a tale that will hit home. The
successful hobo must be an artist. He must create spontaneously and
instantaneously--and not upon a theme selected from the plenitude of
his own imagination, but upon the theme he reads in the face of the
person who opens the door, be it man, woman, or child, sweet or
crabbed, generous or miserly, good-natured or cantankerous, Jew or
Gentile, black or white, race-prejudiced or brotherly, provincial or
universal, or whatever else it may be. I have often thought that to
this training of my tramp days is due much of my success as a
story-writer. In order to get the food whereby I lived, I was
compelled to tell tales that rang true. At the back door, out of
inexorable necessity, is developed the convincingness and sincerity
laid down by all authorities on the art of the short-story. Also, I
quite believe it was my tramp-apprenticeship that made a realist out
of me. Realism constitutes the only goo