s with bulls when
they look "horstile." A swift get-away is the thing to do. It took me
some time to learn this; but the finishing touch was put upon me by a
bull in New York City. Ever since that time it has been an automatic
process with me to make a run for it when I see a bull reaching for
me. This automatic process has become a mainspring of conduct in me,
wound up and ready for instant release. I shall never get over it.
Should I be eighty years old, hobbling along the street on crutches,
and should a policeman suddenly reach out for me, I know I'd drop the
crutches and run like a deer.

The finishing touch to my education in bulls was received on a hot
summer afternoon in New York City. It was during a week of scorching
weather. I had got into the habit of throwing my feet in the morning,
and of spending the afternoon in the little park that is hard by
Newspaper Row and the City Hall. It was near there that I could buy
from pushcart men current books (that had been injured in the making
or binding) for a few cents each. Then, right in the park itself, were
little booths where one could buy glorious, ice-cold, sterilized milk
and buttermilk at a penny a glass. Every afternoon I sat on a bench
and read, and went on a milk debauch. I got away with from five to ten
glasses each afternoon. It was dreadfully hot weather.

So here I was, a meek and studious milk-drinking hobo, and behold what
I got for it. One afternoon I arrived at the park, a fresh
book-purchase under my arm and a tremendous buttermilk thirst under my
shirt. In the middle of the street, in front of the City Hall, I
noticed, as I came along heading for the buttermilk booth, that a
crowd had formed. It was right where I was crossing the street, so I
stopped to see the cause of the collection of curious men. At first I
could see nothing. Then, from the sounds I heard and from a glimpse I
caught, I knew that it was a bunch of gamins playing pee-wee. Now
pee-wee is not permitted in the streets of New York. I didn't know
that, but I learned pretty lively. I had paused possibly thirty
seconds, in which time I had learned the cause of the crowd, when I
heard a gamin yell "Bull!" The gamins knew their business. They ran. I
didn't.

The crowd broke up immediately and started for the sidewalk on both
sides of the street. I started for the sidewalk on the park-side.
There must have been fifty men, who had been in the original crowd,
who were heading in the sa