My very brief career as a beggar

Some years ago I visited Florence. On my last morning there, I had to carry my luggage from the hotel to the railway station. It was very hot and my bags were heavy, so I stopped for a rest at the Baptistry.

I sat on the steps by Ghiberti's great door, fanned myself with my hat and then put it on the ground by my feet. I must have looked dreadful, because a passer-by dropped a small coin into it.

Despite this evidence of the extreme ease of making money by begging, I have not repeated the experiment.