Page 35 - down-and-out-in-paris-and-london

Boris with his game leg, and his optimism wore thinner and
thinner as the day went on. When he got out of the Metro
at the Place d’Italie he was in despair. He began to say that
it was no use looking for work—there was nothing for it but
to try crime.
‘Sooner rob than starve, MON AMI. I have often planned
it. A fat, rich American—some dark corner down Montpar-
nasse way—a cobblestone in a stocking—bang! And then go
through his pockets and bolt. It is feasible, do you not think?
I would not flinch—I have been a soldier, remember.’
He decided against the plan in the end, because we were
both foreigners and easily recognized.
When we had got back to my room we spent another one
franc fifty on bread and chocolate. Boris devoured his share,
and at once cheered up like magic; food seemed to act on his
system as rapidly as a cocktail. He took out a pencil and be-
gan making a list of the people who would probably give us
jobs. There were dozens of them, he said.
‘Tomorrow we shall find something, MON AMI, I know
it in my bones. The luck always changes. Besides, we both
have brains—a man with brains can’t starve.
‘What things a man can do with brains! Brains will
make money out of anything. I had a friend once, a Pole, a
real man of genius; and what do you think he used to do?
He would buy a gold ring and pawn it for fifteen francs.
Then—you know how carelessly the clerks fill up the tick-
ets— where the clerk had written ‘EN OR’ he would add ‘ET
DIAMANTS’ and he would change ‘fifteen francs’ to ‘fif-
teen thousand”. Neat, eh? Then, you see, he could borrow a

Down and Out in Paris and London