But in the tramps’ motley you can say what you like, ask what questions you like, free from the taint of class.
It also puts you right with regard to yourself. You see yourself as others see you, and that is a refreshing grace wafted in upon an opinionated mind. The freedom of speech and action and judgment which it gives you will breed that boldness of bearing which, after all, is better than mere good manners. It allows you to walk on your heels as well as on your toes, and to eat without a finicking assortment of forks. It aids your digestion of truth and of food, and aids nutrition as good air does good porridge. All that highfalutin’ advice which Kipling wrote in “If” may be left in its glum red lettering pasted on your bedroom wall, if you will only put on your tramp’s motley.
“What must I do to inherit eternal life?” The answer to that question is not adequately stated in that “If” of talking to mobs without losing your virtue and to Kings without losing the common touch, or in the “If” of making a heap of all your winnings and staking them in a game of pitch and toss. The answer of the Evangel is Take up the Cross and Follow Me, which may be interpreted indulgently for our purpose here: Take up thy staff and the common burden for thy shoulders, the motley of the pilgrim and the tramp.
CHAPTER FIVE
CARRYING MONEY
PUT money in thy purse,” is often given to the young man as a jewel of wisdom. But we give the contrary advice: take it out. The less you carry the more you will see, the less you spend the more you will experience. Of course, if you have a strong enough will to resist temptation you can carry what you like, but even then you are at the disadvantage of being worth a robber’s attention.
I sometimes pride myself that I set out for Jerusalem with the Russian pilgrims having ten pounds, and that I brought back five of the pounds to Russia. The most I paid for lodging in Jerusalem was three farthings a day. Had I quit for a hotel I should have lost most of the experience of the pilgrimage. When I made my study of the emigrants to America I went steerage and came back steerage. I stayed in a workman’s lodging house in New York and I tramped to Chicago on less than a dollar a day. Of course it is very expensive in America, always was, unless you care to work your way. For my part, I think working one’s way even more expensive.
A shilling a day ought to be ample for tramping in any part of the world—if you cook on your own camp fire and sleep out. But America is an exception. There you will need three-parts of a dollar. In Europe generally, after the War, one needs to consider the currency situation. The Tyrol has been a place of cheap food and wine; now it is much dearer. France and Italy, on the other hand, are cheaper.
It is well to carry notes of low denominations, as it is almost always difficult to get change in the country. If you have a larger note, a reserve, to take you, let us say, by boat or train somewhere, at some point of your adventure, or to bring you home, it is as well to sew it in your jacket lining. It is a mistake to put it in your knapsack or in a pocket of a shirt. Once I put a five-pound note in a secret pocket of a shirt and forgot all about it till after I received my linen one day, washed and ironed, from a peasant girl. Suddenly I remembered, and feverishly picked up the shirt and went to the secret pocket, the girl smiling at me as I did so. The note was there, fresh and crisp. I was astonished. “You washed and ironed this bit of paper?” I asked. “No,” she said simply, “I found it in and took it out. But I put it back after ironing.”