[originaltext] Presently I got up and dressed, stuck my violin under my jack

Presently I got up and dressed, stuck my violin under my jacket, and went out into the streets to try my luck. It was now or never. I must face it now, or pack up and go back home. I wandered about for an hour looking for a likely spot, feeling as though I were about to commit a crime. Then I stopped at last under a bridge near the station and decided to have a go.
    I felt tense and shaky. It was the first time, after all. I drew the violin from my coat like a gun. It was here, in Southampton, with trains rattling overhead that I was about to declare myself. One moment I was part of the hurrying crowds, the next I stood nakedly apart my back to the wall, my hat on the pavement before me, the violin under my chin.
    The first note I played were loud and raw, like a hoarse declaration of protest, then they settled down and began to run more smoothly and to stay more or less in tune. To my surprise, I was neither arrested nor told to shut up. Indeed, nobody took any notice al: all. Then an old man, without stopping, surreptitiously tossed a penny into my hat as though to get rid of some guilty evidence.
    Other pennies followed, slowly but steadily, dropped by shadows that appeared not to see or hear me. It was as though the note of the fiddle touched some subconscious nerve that had to be answered-- like baby’s cry. When I’d finished the first tune there was a shilling in my hat. It seemed too easy, like a confidence trick. But I was elated now. I felt wherever I went from here, this was a trick I could always live by.