Thursday 3 April 2008

Two Beggars

Last Sunday near Victoria Terminus, I saw the most remarkable beggar I have ever seen in my life. He wore lipstick, an orange cap, and a black, orange and green windcheater. His teeth were in a state of abominable decay. His nails were painted in different colours. On his back was a spectacularly colourful patchwork sack; a mobile phone dangled from his neck.

Some little distance down Threadneedle Street, upon the left-hand side, there is, as you may have remarked, a small angle in the wall. There sat Neville St. Clair, alias Hugh Boone. A shock of orange hair, a pale face disfigured by a horrible scar, which, by its contraction, had turned up the outer edge of his upper lip, a bulldog chin, and a pair of very penetrating dark eyes: these were enough to mark him out from amid the common crowd of mendicants. But Neville St. Clair appeared in Conan Doyle’s fiction, set in bleak, grey London. In colourful South Bombay, obviously, stronger measures had been called for.

2 comments:

Anonymous said...

Rahul Saha said...
This reminds me of a beggar Nobby once told me about when he first reached the States, "The guy was wearing a better walkman than me, had better clothes and was asking me for money."

RC said...
'bleak, grey London' on one hand .... and 'colourful South Bombay' on the other .... do I sense the birth of a career-defining perspective here? :)

Keep blogging ... the posts are a really good read.

Sroyon said...
@rahul saha: Haha nice one.

@rc: Yes, I realised myself that the post could also be construed that way. Was wondering if anyone else would notice...

pangolin said...

Holmes! this was cool.