I do not like the way this beggar pleads. And yet after I pass him and remember his calculating expression, his mountebank tricks, I grow fond of him--theoretically. My thought warms to him as a creature of intelligence, of straightforward and amusing cynicisms. For this beggar is aware of me and the innumerable lies to which I lamely submit. I am the public to him--one of a herd of identical faces drifting by. And this beggar has perfected a technique of attack. It is his duty to sit on the pavement and lay for me and hit me with a slapstick labeled platitude and soak me over the head with a bladder labeled in stern white letters: "The Poor Shall Inherit the Kingdom of Heaven." And this he does, the scoundrel, grinning to himself as the blows fall and slyly concealing his enthusiasm as the coins jingle into his hat. I am one of those who labor proudly at the immemorial task of idealizations. I am the public who passes laws proclaiming things wrong, immoral, contrary to my "best instincts." Thus I have after many centuries succeeded in creating a beautiful conception--a marvelous person. This marvelous person represents what I might be if I had neither ambition nor corpuscles, prejudices nor ecstasties, greeds, lusts, illusions or curiosity. This marvelous person is the beautiful image, the noble and flattering image of itself that the public rapturously beholds when it stares into the mirror of laws, conventions, adages, platitudes and constitutions that it has created. A charming image to contemplate. Learned men wax full of stern joy when they gaze upon this image. Kind-hearted folk thrill with pride at the thought that life is at last a carefully policed force which flows politely and properly through the catalogued veins of this marvelous person. But my beggar in the street--ah, my beggar in the street knows better. My beggar in the street, maimed and vicious, sits against the building and wields his bladder and his slapstick on me. Whang! A platitude on the rear. Bam! A bromide on the bean! And I shell out a dime and hurry on. I do not like this beggar. * * * * *