I got on very well with Manchester Jack, and we might have been together for a long time, had he not been arrested for begging, and sentenced to a few days' imprisonment. XIX Charity in Strange Quarters A fine house is seldom worth a beggar's notice, for the simple reason that it has too many people to consult. The servant girl has to tell the cook, and the cook has her orders from the mistress; and either one of these has power to stop the flow of charity. The servant girl may, if no one is looking, dismiss a beggar with a shake of her head; or the cook may think she has quite enough work to do without waiting on tramps. The fact of the matter is that you can seldom find a servant and her mistress of one mind; if the latter is kind and charitable, it is often found that the servant is otherwise. If the mistress is mean and uncharitable, the servant is often--sometimes through spite, and no kindness in herself--inclined to charity. All tramps have experiences to relate of how kind-hearted ladies or gentlemen have come out of the house and called them back, or met them at the gate and, after enquiring their wants, led them back to the house and reprimanded the servants for sending poor men away empty-handed. Again, there are other cases of servant girls giving charity against the strict orders of their masters and mistresses--girls with good, kind hearts. So, you see, a fine house is so unreliable that it always pays a beggar to confine his efforts to small houses. There is not the least doubt but what bells cry hunger, common iron knockers spell charity, and shabby doors that cannot afford either bell or knocker, and require bare knuckles, are--from a beggar's point of view--the richest. Even when rich people are charitable, and give food, clothes, and money, they never seem to be impressed by the word workhouse; for they seem to regard that place as a comfortable home. But to mention workhouse to the poor is to send a shudder through them, and they will always try to assist a man to escape it. They see that dreadful place before themselves, when old age and poverty come, and they pity a man that has to go there, if only for one night.