"That is what I mean, sir."
There is always the other person's point of view. You learn that as you go along, and, in the street, you will learn it as quickly as anywhere. The man who runs into you on the pavement is going in his direction as well as you in yours, and it is always a nice point to decide whether you ran into him or he into you. In any case, you may be certain that he has his opinion on it.
John smiled.
"And you're sick of them too, eh?"
The ballad-monger fitted his mouthpiece carefully on to the instrument that played the golden tunes.
"Well, I've what you might call passed that stage, sir. They're in the blood, as you might say, by this time. They're always going on. When I'm asleep, I hear bands playing them in the street. If it isn't 'Arethusa,' it's 'Come Lasses and Lads,' or 'Sally in Our Alley.' They keep going on--and sometimes it's shocking to hear the way they play them. You almost might say that's how I earned the money that people give me, sir--not by playing them on this instrument here--I don't mind that so much. It's the playing them in my head--that's the job I ought to get paid for."
John looked at him. The man had a point of view. He could see the nicer side of a matter. There are not so very many people who can. The predominant idea when he came into the street, of telling the man he was a nuisance, vanished from John's mind. He felt in his pockets. There lay one sixpence. He fingered it for a moment, then brought it out.
"Buy yourself a penny score of another tune," he said, "and let's hear it next Friday. It may drive the others out."
The man took it, looked at him, but said no word of thanks. No words are so obsequious. No words can so spoil a gift. John walked away with a sense of respect.
At the top of the Lane he remembered that he had no penny to pay for his chair in Kensington Gardens. What was to be done? He walked back again. The ballad-monger was at the last bars of the "Arethusa."