She looked at me with evident suspicion: "Nay, she never sold
stuff i' that way."
Almost desperate, I asked for half a cake; she again refused. "How
could she tell where I had got the handkerchief?" she said.
"Would she take my gloves?"
"No! what could she do with them?"
Reader, it is not pleasant to dwell on these details. Some say
there is enjoyment in looking back to painful experience past;
but at this day I can scarcely bear to review the times to which I
allude: the moral degradation, blent with the physical suffering,
form too distressing a recollection ever to be willingly dwelt on.
I blamed none of those who repulsed me. I felt it was what was to
be expected, and what could not be helped: an ordinary beggar is
frequently an object of suspicion; a well-dressed beggar inevitably
so. To be sure, what I begged was employment; but whose business
was it to provide me with employment? Not, certainly, that of
persons who saw me then for the first time, and who knew nothing
about my character. And as to the woman who would not take my
handkerchief in exchange for her bread, why, she was right, if the
offer appeared to her sinister or the exchange unprofitable. Let
me condense now. I am sick of the subject.
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