I thought it was cigar
and cigarette stumps they were collecting, and for some time took no
notice. Then I did notice.
_From the slimy, spittle-drenched, sidewalk, they were picking up bits of
orange peel, apple skin, and grape stems, and, they were eating them. The
pits of greengage plums they cracked between their teeth for the kernels
inside. They picked up stray bits of bread the size of peas, apple cores
so black and dirty one would not take them to be apple cores, and these
things these two men took into their mouths, and chewed them, and
swallowed them; and this, between six and seven o'clock in the evening of
August 20, year of our Lord 1902, in the heart of the greatest,
wealthiest, and most powerful empire the world has ever seen_.
These two men talked. They were not fools, they were merely old. And,
naturally, their guts a-reek with pavement offal, they talked of bloody
revolution. They talked as anarchists, fanatics, and madmen would talk.
And who shall blame them? In spite of my three good meals that day, and
the snug bed I could occupy if I wished, and my social philosophy, and my
evolutionary belief in the slow development and metamorphosis of
things--in spite of all this, I say, I felt impelled to talk rot with
them or hold my tongue.
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