The Inventions of the Idiot

"Well," said the Doctor, "enlighten us on this point. You may not know how to show nerve as a writer--in fact, you confess that you don't. How would you show nerve as a beggar? Would you strive to enforce your demands and degenerate into a common highwayman, or would you simply go in for big profits, and ask passers-by for ten dollars instead of ten cents?" "He'd probably take a bag of dynamite into a millionaire's office and threaten to blow him to pieces if he didn't give him a house and lot," sneered the Bibliomaniac. "Not at all," said the Idiot. "That's cowardice, not nerve. If I went into a millionaire's office and demanded a million--or a house and lot even--armed with a bag full of newspapers, pretending it held dynamite, it might be more like nerve; but my beggar would do nothing contrary to the law. He'd simply be nervy, that's all--cheeky, perhaps you'd call it. For instance, I believe that if I were to hire in the elevated cars one of those advertising spaces above the windows, and were to place in that space a placard saying that I was by nature too lazy to work, too fond of life to starve, too poor to live, and too honest to steal, and would be placed in affluence if every man and woman who saw that sign would send me ten cents a week in two-cent postage-stamps for five weeks running, I should receive enough money to enable me to live at the most expensive hotel in town during that period. By living at that hotel and paying my bills regularly I could get credit enough to set myself up in business, and with credit there is practically no limit to the possibilities of fortune. It is simply honest nerve that counts. The beggar who asks you on the street for five cents to keep his family from starving is rebuffed. You don't believe his story, and you know that five cents wouldn't keep a family from starving very long. But the fellow who accosts you frankly for a dime because he is thirsty, and hasn't had a drink for two hours, in nine cases out of ten properly selected ones will get a quarter for his nerve."