Now, when Brum left, he had on a dark shirt, but I was so accustomed to seeing him change his appearance with a fresh coat, or a different shaped hat, that I was not at all surprised on waking to see him sitting before me in a clean white shirt with a starched front. I said nothing about this change, and he was too good a beggar to give unsolicited information, which would look too much like boasting of his own exploits. That he had met another of his favourite fat ladies, or perhaps the same one had added to her kindness--there was not the least doubt. Brum's first words rather startled me, for he continued the conversation from the place I left off previous to my sleep. "When I was in England," he began, "I did not experience such hardship as is commonly supposed to exist. Beggars there, as here, choose the wrong places, and not one in three knows which are the best." "Surely," I said, "a good clean street of houses with respectable fronts, of moderate size, and kept by the better class mechanics, are the best?" "And so they would be," he answered, "if every beggar did not think so. But let me tell you, for your benefit if ever stranded in England, the best places for beggars to operate." How I learned the truth of his wise teaching, in after days! Every fine looking street you chance upon, pass it; but every little court or blind alley you come across, take possession without delay, especially if its entrance is under an arch, which hides the approach to the houses, making them invisible from the street. Such little out of the way places are not only more profitable than good streets, but are comparatively safe where the police are unusually severe. Then again you should avoid every town that has not either a mill, a factory, or a brewery; old fashioned towns, quiet and without working people--except a few gardeners, coachmen, domestic servants, etc: such places where you see a sign at the free libraries warning tramps not to enter, and every plot of land has its sign--"Beware of the Dog." In towns where working men are numerous, and the idle rich are few, such signs are not to be seen. "Of course," he continued, "your object in England must be money, for you cannot expect to get meat, cake and custard pudding in a land where even the rich live poorer, with regards to diet, than the labouring classes of this country." I remembered these wise thoughts of Brum, uttered on the shores of the Atlantic, and if I did not profit much by them in my own experience in England, I certainly made enough attempts to test their truth. I always kept a keen eye for blind alleys, and quiet courts under arches, and I invariably came out of one richer than I went in. And what nice quiet places they are for drinking cups of tea on a doorstep, with only a neighbour or two to see you, and perhaps thousands of people passing to and fro in the street at the other side of the arch. There is no thoroughfare for