Ann Althouse
links to a New York Post story about a bum boasting he makes $200 an hour panhandling (cheers to Instapundit).Remember the Conan Doyle story about the anguished family who called Sherlock Holmes about the husband/father millionaire who had vanished for days?
In The Man with the Twisted Lip, what was worse was that the police had found a disfigured beggar who was wearing the millionaire's coat, and he refused to testify or explain why he was wearing the man's coat.
Dr Watson's story concludes as Holmes pulls on the beggar's beard, it comes off and it turns out to be the millionaire!
He explains that many years ago, he had lost his job and had had no choice but to turn to begging for a short term.
Here, however, he made a lot more money than he had at his regular, honest job, and so he had turned professional beggar, amassing his fortune over the years.
