analyzed by an American economist (General Walker), and called rent of
ability. Now this rent, when the ability is of the artistic or political
sort, is often paid in kind. For example, a London possessor of such
ability may, with barely enough money to maintain a furnished bedroom
and a single presentable suit of clothes, see everything worth seeing
that a millionaire can see, and know everybody worth knowing that he can
know. Long before I reached this point myself, a very trifling
accomplishment gave me glimpses of the sort of fashionable life a
peasant never sees. Thus I remember one evening during the novel-writing
period when nobody would pay a farthing for a stroke of my pen, walking
along Sloane Street in that blessed shield of literary shabbiness,
evening dress. A man accosted me with an eloquent appeal for help,
ending with the assurance that he had not a penny in the world. I
replied, with exact truth, "Neither have I." He thanked me civilly, and
went away, apparently not in the least surprised, leaving me to ask
myself why I did not turn beggar too, since I felt sure that a man who
did it as well as he, must be in comfortable circumstances.

Another reminiscence. A little past midnight, in the same costume, I was
turning from Piccadilly into Bond Street, when a lady of the pavement,
out of luck that evening so far, confided to me that the last bus for
Brompton had passed, and that she should be grateful to any gentleman
who would give her a lift in a hansom. My old-fashioned Irish gallantry
had not then been worn off by age and England: besides, as a novelist
who could find no publisher, I was touched by the similarity of our
trades and predicaments. I excused myself very politely on the ground
that my wife (invented for the occasion) was waiting for me at home, and
that I felt sure so attractive a lady would have no difficulty in
finding another escort. Unfortunately this speech made so favorable an
impression on her that she immediately took my arm and declared her