sEPTICEMIA*

The shamble leg man came across a beggar sitting cross-legged on the sidewalk, his almscap brim side up. ‘Those yours?’ he said, his eyesight straining, the beggar’s eyes septic with blood. ‘Those yours?’ he answered, pointing to a bag of bread-ends on the pavement beside him. ‘This is mine,’ said the shamble leg man, pointing at his great coat, ‘those, however, are yours’, he added pointing at the bag between the beggar’s legs. ‘So what is mine isn’t yours?’ asked the beggar. ‘Yes,’ said the shamble leg man, swiping a fly from the curse of his face. ‘Yes.’ ‘My bread is old, just odds and ends’, said the beggar, his eye weeping, ‘just ends and odds of bread.’ ‘But it’s yours’, said the shamble leg man, ‘not mine.’ ‘Yes, the bread is mine certainly, but the coat’, he said, pointing at the shamble leg man, ‘that is yours, not mine?’ ‘Yes,’ said the shamble leg man, that I am certain of.’ ‘I know of a man who likes soup, but abhors Jell-O,’ said the shamble leg man, the fly abuzz around his head. ‘If you can find him, which is improbable, as he tends to himself most of the time, he would gladly give you his Jell-O’. ‘But not the soup,’ said the beggar. ‘No, the soup he will not give up,’ said the shamble leg man, ‘that is his, and his alone’. ‘These are good things to know,’ said the beggar, ‘good things indeed.’ The shamble leg man turned to go, and said, ‘those are yours, yes?’ ‘Of course’, said the beggar, ‘mine, just odds and ends. Yours is a coat,’ he added, ‘and a fine one indeed.’ ‘Good bye,’ said the shamble leg man turning, ‘and indeed have a joyous day’. The beggar rearranged the bag of odds and ends between his legs, his eye septic with sleeplessness, and said, ‘and to you, too, sir, a good day.’