II

my lunch and breakfast cost next to nothing. Yes, I can be a pushcart peddler in the day; I can sleep out of doors at night; I can do with coffee and oranges for lunch and breakfast; but in the evening I will assert my dignity and do justice to my taste: I will dine at the Hermitage and permit you to call me a fool. And why not, since my purse, like my stomach, is now my own? Why not go to the Hermitage since my pushcart income permits of it? But the first night I went there my shabbiness attracted the discomforting attention of the fashionable diners, and made even the waiters offensive. Indeed, one of them came to ask if I were looking for somebody. ‘No,’ I replied with suppressed indignation; ‘I’m looking for a place where I can sit down and eat, without being eaten by the eyes of the vulgar curious.’ And I pass into an arbor, which from that night becomes virtually my own, followed by a waiter who from that night, too, became my friend. For every evening I go there, I find my table unoccupied and my waiter ready to receive and serve me. But don’t think he does this for the sake of my black eyes or my philosophy. That disdainful glance of his on the first evening I could never forget, billah . And I found that it could be baited and mellowed only by a liberal tip. And this I make in advance every week for both my comfort and his. Yes, I am a fool, I grant you, but I’m not out of my element there. “After dinner I take a stroll in the Flower Gardens, and crossing the rickety wooden bridge over the river, I enter the hemlock grove. Here, in a sequestered spot near the river bank, I lay me on the grass and sleep for the night. I always bring my towels with me; for in the morning I take a dip, and at night I use them for a pillow. When the weather requires it, I bring my blankets too. And hanging