or years, off
and on, but you never know what might happen. I might stop breathing,
for instance--and so might you."

Smith began to look alarmed.

"Poetical justice might overtake one or both of us--such things have
happened before, though not often. Or, say, misfortune or death might
mistake us for honest, hard-working mugs with big families to keep, and
cut us off in the bloom of all our wisdom. You might get into trouble,
and, in that case, I'd be bound to leave you there, on principle; or
I might get into trouble, and you wouldn't have the brains to get me
out--though I know you'd be mug enough to try. I might make a rise and
cut you, or you might be misled into showing some spirit, and clear out
after I'd stoushed you for it. You might get tired of me calling you a
mug, and bossing you and making a tool or convenience of you, you know.
You might go in for honest graft (you were always a bit weak-minded) and
then I'd have to wash my hands of you (unless you agreed to keep me)
for an irreclaimable mug. Or it might suit me to become a respected and
worthy fellow townsman, and then, if you came within ten miles of me
or hinted that you ever knew me, I'd have you up for vagrancy, or
soliciting alms, or attempting to levy blackmail. I'd have to fix
you--so I give you fair warning. Or we might get into some desperate
fix (and it needn't be very desperate, either) when I'd be obliged to
sacrifice you for my own personal safety, comfort, and convenience.
Hundreds of things might happen.

"Well, as I said, we've been at large together for some years, and I've
found you sober, trustworthy, and honest; so, in case we do part--as we
will sooner or later--and you survive, I'll give you some advice from my
own experience.

"In the first place: If you ever happen to get born again--and it
wouldn't do you much harm--get born with the strength of a bullock and
the hide of one as well, and a swelled head, and no brains--at least
no more brains than you've got now. I was born with a skin like
tissue-paper, and brains; also a heart.

"Get born without relatives, if you can: if you can't help it, clear out
on your own just as soon after you're born as you possibly can. I hung
on.

"If you have relations, and feel inclined to help them any time when
you're flush (and there's no telling what a weak-minded man like you
might take it into his head to do)--don't do it. They'll get a down on
you if you do. It only causes family troub