It was certainly a most extraordinary town for good-natured people, for in less than half an hour we were all back in the camp. "Where's Brum?" I asked Wingy. "I don't know," he answered. The words were hardly out of my mouth when Cincinnati Slim appeared, still picking his teeth, and close at his heels came Brum. After Wingy and Frisco Fatty had left the camp, for they were on their way to Galveston, Brum looked straight at Cincinnati Slim and said, "Well, Slim, what kind of breakfast did you have? More chicken?" "Not this time," answered Slim; "ham and fried eggs." "You young liar!" cried Brum. "You have not been to a single house, for I have been following you all the time. You have had nothing to eat since you came except what you have had at this camp. If it were not for luck, young fools like you would starve. Here, take this"--and he threw Cincinnati Slim a paper of food. The latter sat down without a word and began to eat. III Daring Beggars American beggars knock boldly at doors like kings' messengers. An imposing mansion with marble pillars is a challenge to them, and they dance up its steps and press the button of an electric bell with a violence that no familiar friends of the house would dare use; but an English beggar almost sinks into the earth when his ears receive the report of his timid hand. In fact, except in very rare instances, where a large house has been approached and--for a wonder--found good, and has become famous to the begging fraternity--except in these very rare instances, English beggars pass by large mansions as though they were empty churches or smallpox hospitals. I don't suppose there is a more daring or more impudent rascal on earth than a good American beggar. It is always his boast that he has begged an ex-president, or the present one, and he claims to have received benefits from a number of well-known millionaires, actors, and prize-fighters. Such proud experiences never fall from the lips of an English beggar, for the simple reason that he lives on the working and middle classes. A row of small cottages is of more benefit to him than an equal number of fine villas, and he thinks that he is in a hungry wilderness when there is nothing to be seen but very large houses--and he is quite right.