Some of my beggar acquaintances were so clever and so well educated that they might easily have made a living for themselves; but, as one of them told me when I thought I had made him thoroughly ashamed of himself, and quite confidential, they preferred begging to any other kind of occupation. “Talk of shooting partridges or pheasants,” he said, “talk of racing or gambling, there is no sport like begging. There must always be risk in sport, and the risk in begging is very great. You are fighting,” my half-penitent informant said, “against tremendous odds. You ring at the door, and you must first of all face a servant, who generally scrutinises you with great suspicion, and declines to take your name or your card, unless you have a clean shirt and a decent pair of boots. Then, after you have been admitted to the presence, you have to watch every expression of your enemy or your friend, as the case may be. You have to face the cleverest people in the world, and you know all the time that the slightest mistake in your looks or in the tone of your voice may lead to ruin. You may be kicked out of the house, and if you meet with a high-minded and public-spirited gentleman, who does not mind trouble and expense, you may find yourself in the hands of the police for trying to obtain money under false pretences. No,” he concluded, “I have known in my time what hunting and shooting and gambling are; but I assure you there is no sport like begging.” What is one to do with such a visitor—in appearance, in manners, and in language, quite a gentleman, or a _ci-devant_ gentleman, a man who has been at a university, and who, when asked, will translate a page of Homer to you very fairly, who bears, of course, a noble name, and has friends, as he gives you to understand, in every university or at every court in Europe—what is one to do with him, if not to accelerate his departure by means of a small gift, for which he is generally very grateful? But that is really the worst one can do. For, on the strength of it, your noble sportsman will at once go to other covers, to all your friends, tell them that you have helped him, describe your generosity, your room, your dog, your cat, and thus among your unsuspecting friends secure a fresh bag, dearer to him, if you may believe him, than any number of pheasants and partridges.