No sooner was I out on the streets than I was impressed by the difference in status effected by my clothes.All servility vanished from demeanor of the common people with whom I came in contact.
Presto! in the twinkling of an eye, so to say, I had become one of them.My frayed and out-at-elbows jacket was the badge and advertisement of my class, which was their class.It made me of like kind, and in place of the fawning and too-respectful attention I had hitherto received, I now shared with them a comradeship.The man in corduroy and dirty neckerchief no longer addressed me as 'sir' or 'governor.' It was 'mate,' now- and a fine and hearty word, with a tingle to it, and a warmth and gladness, which the other term does not possess.Governor! It smacks of mastery, and power, and high authority- the tribute of the man who is under to the man on top, delivered in the hope that he will let up a bit and ease his weight.
Which is another way of saying that it is an appeal for alms.
This brings me to a delight I experienced in my rags and tatters which is denied the average American abroad.The European traveller from the States, who is not a Croesus, speedily finds himself reduced to a chronic state of self-conscious sordidness by the hordes of cringing robbers who clutter his steps from dawn till dark, and deplete his pocketbook in a way that puts compound interest to the blush.