8. “Fat” is a very efficient “panhandler.” He does not always “panhandle” but works when the opportunities present and the weather permits. He gets his money from men on the street, but he does most of his begging in winter when he cannot get the courage to leave town. He can beg for three or four hours and obtain about three dollars in that time. He only “panhandles” when his money is gone. He has a good personality and appeals for help in a frank, open manner giving no hard-luck story. He says that he is a workingman temporarily down and that he is trying to get some money to leave town. He does not work the same street every day. He keeps sober. He has no moral scruples against begging, nor against work. He works and works well when circumstances force him to it. He doesn’t feel mean when out begging or “stemming.” He looks upon it as a legitimate business and better than stealing, and so long as the situation is such he might as well make the best of it. He seldom “panhandles” in summer. He has an interesting philosophy. He calculates that according to the law of averages out of each hundred persons he begs, a certain number will turn him down, a certain number will “bawl him out,” a certain number will give him advice, and a certain number will give him something, and his earnings will average about three dollars. So he goes at the job with vigor each time in order to get it over as soon as possible. “You get to expect about so much police interference and so much opposition from the people, and you get more of this in winter than in summer, but that is the case in whatever line you go into.” “Fat” works and begs as the notion strikes him but he does less begging in summer and less work in winter. If he doesn’t like one city he goes to another. Last winter (1921-22) he was in Chicago, not because he likes Chicago but because he happened to be here. THE GAME OF “GETTING BY” “Getting by” is a game not without its elements of fascination. The man who “panhandles” is getting a compensation that is not wholly measured by the nickels and dimes he accumulates. Even the peddler of shoestrings likes to think of “good days” when he is able to surpass himself. It matters not by what means “the down-and-out” gets his living; he manages to find a certain satisfaction in the game. The necessity of “putting it over” has its own compensations.