Often when I had related to my friends some of my painful experiences with beggars and they laughed at me, “Wait,” I said, “I shall have my revenge; and when I am unfit to do anything else, I shall write a book about Beggars.” Now it has sometimes happened to me of late that, when I had sat down to do the work to which I have been accustomed for so many years, I could not get on at all, or if by a great effort of will I managed to do something, it was of no use, and had to be done again. I felt, therefore, that the time had come for rest, or at all events, for a change of occupation, and, though I had not yet sufficient time to spare for writing a whole book on beggars, I thought I might jot down a few of my experiences, not only as an amusement to myself, but possibly as a useful lesson to some of my friends. It seems to me that my experience has been large, larger than that of most of my acquaintances. Why, I cannot tell; but beggars, and extremely clever beggars too, have evidently singled me out as an easy prey. They seem to have imagined—in fact they told me so again and again—that I was a rich man, and could well afford to help a poor beggar. They little knew what a poor beggar I was myself, and how hard I have had to work through life to keep myself afloat, and to live as I was expected to live among my wealthy colleagues at Oxford. They would have smiled incredulously if I had told them how many hours, nay, how many weeks, a scholar has often to do the hardest drudgery without getting a penny for his work. He has often to be thankful if he can find a publisher for what is the outcome of years of hard labour. It is schoolbooks only that are remunerative, or novels and sermons, and novels he has to leave to his worldly, sermons to his unworldly, fellow-labourers.