I have heard of the death of a number more, men that lingered with such determination that it almost seems as if they have taken advantage of my absence and died; for they all seem to have gone one after the other since I left. "One-eyed" Jim is dead. A terrible cough he had, but his face and neck were always like raw beef. That one eye of his blazed with such power that I have often imagined the devil hard at work shovelling half a ton a coal a minute to supply its fierce light. He also went off suddenly, walking the kitchen floor on Monday, and lying cold and dead on the following day. "Rags" is also dead, the great drinker; the man who when abroad complained that whiskey made him totter, whereas it was an earthquake, that tumbled towers and made the firm-footed houses reel. "The whiskey's in my legs," said "Rags," not knowing it was an earthquake. "Monkey" Sam and the "Dodger" are both dead, and there is no doubt but what the Dodger's death hastened Sam's. These two were the slyest pair that I have ever met. I believe they understood each other's thoughts so well that when one's body itched the other could, without seeing his friend make a motion, scratch his own body at the exact place. These two conversed by looks, and uttered very few words. They were so well-matched and thought so much of one another, that something more than accident must have brought two such men together. It was always clear that if anything happened to part them, neither one would seek friendship elsewhere. I had seen all these men fighting against death day after day, but with such determination, that I can hardly believe the report that calls them dead; especially as there is no proof of lettered stone, seeing that they are all in paupers' graves. All these poor invalids in common lodging-houses are under the impression that doctors, when they find that their patients have no friends, and cannot be thoroughly cured, kill them. That is why they are so stubborn, and fight till they cannot move, before they will enter a hospital. XVIII The Earnings of Beggars In writing of the earnings of beggars, I do not, of course, include common tramps, who are satisfied with barns, sheds, empty houses and workhouses; I write of true beggars, who have not lost their self-respect, and who, by their exertions, are as sure of a bed at night--although it is a different one--as other people that have homes. If they sleep out of doors for a night or two in summer-time, they do so for pleasure; as people with homes will, when they sleep in hammocks under trees. The true beggar does not shirk business, or save money by sleeping out; he still follows his calling and makes the price of his bed, but in this instance he spends the money on ale instead of stifling with so many others in a common lodging-house.