blame
Trixie. That was her game. And, by Jove! she was a star at it. I'd
go back to her now if she'd let me."

"You're a fool!" snorts Mr. Robert.

"Always was, my dear Bob," says Bunny placid. "You often told me as
much."

"But I didn't think," goes on Mr. Robert, "you'd get as low as--as
tonight--begging!"

"Quite respectable for me, I assure you," says Bunny. "Why, my dear
fellow, during the last few years there's been hardly a crime on the
calendar I shouldn't have committed for a dollar--barring murder, of
course. That requires nerve. How long do you suppose the few
thousands I got from Aunt Eunice lasted? Barely six months. I thought
I knew how to live rather luxuriously myself. But Trixie! Well, she
taught me. And we were in Paris, you know. I didn't cable the
governor until I was down to my last hundred-franc note. His reply was
something of a stinger. I showed it to Trixie. She just laughed and
went out for a drive. She didn't come back. I hear she picked up a
brewer's son at Monte Carlo. Lucky devil, he was!

"And I? What would you expect? In less than two weeks I was a
stowaway on a French liner. They routed me out and set me to stoking.
I couldn't stand that, of course; so they put me to work in the
kitchens, cleaning pots, dumping garbage, waiting on the crew. I had
to make the round trip too. Then I jumped the stinking craft, only to
get a worse berth on a P. & O. liner. I worked with Chinese, Lascars,
coolies, the scum of the earth; worked and ate and slept and fought
with them. I crawled ashore and deserted in strange ports. I think it
was at Aden where I came nearest to starving the first time. And I
remember the docks at Alexandria. Sometimes the tourists threw down
coppers for the Arab and Berber boys to scrabble for. It's a pleasant
custom. I was there, in that scrabbling, cursing, clawing rabble. And
when I'd had a good day I spent my coppers royally in a native
dance-hall which even guides don't dare show to the trippers.

"Respectability, my dear Bob, is all a matter of comparison. I
acquired a lot of new standards. As a second cabin steward on a Brazos
liner I became quite haughty. Poverty! You don't know what it means
until you've rubbed elbows with it in the Far East and the Far South.
Here you have the Bowery Mission bread line. That's a fair sample,
Bob, of our American opulence. Free bread!"

"So you've been in that, have you?" asks Mr. Robert.