“One day, in passing through the street, though it was broad noon, I encountered Clarke in a state of intoxication, and talking to a crowd he had collected around him. I sought to pass in an opposite direction; he would not suffer me; he, whom I sickened to touch, to see, threw himself in my way, and affected gibe and insult, nay even threat. But when he came near, he shrank before the mere glance of my eye, and I passed on unheeding him. The insult galled me; he had taunted my poverty, poverty was a favourite jest with him; it galled me; anger, revenge, no! those passions I had never felt for any man. I could not rouse them for the first time for such a cause; yet I was lowered in my own eyes, I was stung. Poverty! he taunt me! He dream himself, on account of a little yellow dust, my superior! I wandered from the town, and paused by the winding and shagged banks of the river. It was a gloomy winter’s day, the waters rolled on black and sullen, and the dry leaves rustled desolately beneath my feet. Who shall tell us that outward nature has no effect upon our mood? All around seemed to frown upon my lot. I read in the face of heaven and earth a confirmation of the curse which man hath set upon poverty. I leant against a tree that overhung the waters, and suffered my thoughts to glide on in the bitter silence of their course. I heard my name uttered--I felt a hand on my arm, I turned, and Houseman was by my side. “‘What, moralizing?’ said he, with his rude smile. “I did not answer him. “‘Look,’ said he, pointing to the waters, ‘where yonder fish lies waiting his prey, that prey his kind. Come, you have read Nature, is it not so universally?’ “I did not answer him. “‘They who do not as the rest,’ he renewed, ‘fulfil not the object of their existence; they seek to be wiser than their tribe, and are fools for their pains. Is it not so? I am a plain man, and would learn.’ “Still I did not answer. “‘You are silent,’ said he; ‘do I offend you?’ “‘No!’ “‘Now, then,’ he continued, ‘strange as it may seem, we, so different in mind, are at this moment alike in fortunes. I have not a guinea in the wide world; you, perhaps, are equally destitute. But mark the difference, I, the ignorant man, ere three days have passed, will have filled my purse; you, the wise man, will be still as poor. Come, cast away your wisdom, and do as I do.’ “‘How?’ “‘Take from the superfluities of others what your necessities crave. My horse, my pistol, a ready hand, a stout heart, these are to me, what coffers are to others. There is the chance of detection and of death; I allow it. But is not this chance better than some certainties?’ “I turned away my face. In the silence of my chamber, and in the solitude of my heart, I had thought, as the robber spoke--there was a strife within me. “‘Will you share the danger and the booty?’ renewed Houseman, in a low voice. “I turned my eyes upon him. ‘Speak out,’ said I; ‘explain your purpose!’ “Houseman’s looks brightened.