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The Enormous Room by E. E. (Edward Estlin) Cummings
page 41 of 322 (12%)
driver stops his wagon to watch the spider and his outlandish fly. I
chuckled to think how long since I had washed and shaved. Then I nearly
fell, staggered on a few steps, and set down the two loads.

Perhaps it was the fault of a strictly vegetarian diet. At any rate, I
couldn't move a step farther with my bundles. The sun sent the sweat
along my nose in tickling waves. My eyes were blind.

Hereupon I suggested that the v-f-g carry part of one of my bundles with
me, and received the answer: "I am doing too much for you as it is. No
_gendarme_ is supposed to carry a prisoner's baggage."

I said then: "I'm too tired."

He responded: "You can leave here anything you don't care to carry
further; I'll take care of it."

I looked at the _gendarme_. I looked several blocks through him. My lip
did something like a sneer. My hands did something like fists.

At this crisis along comes a little boy. May God bless all males between
seven and ten years of age in France!

The _gendarme_ offered a suggestion, in these words: "Have you any change
about you?" He knew, of course, that the sanitary official's first act
had been to deprive me of every last cent. The _gendarme's_ eyes were
fine. They reminded me of ... never mind. "If you have change," said he,
"you might hire this kid to carry some of your baggage." Then he lit a
pipe which was made in his own image, and smiled fattily.

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