The astonished tramp stared for a short time at this person who employed such peculiar language--then mumbled an oath and shook his head.
He began to try on the frock-coat, paying scant attention to the other"s monologue. The coat was a ludicrous misfit; it would not meet over the bulging belly; its tails dragged on the fat man"s heels.
"If I happened to stand handy by when a Kansas cyclone ripped the insides out of a clothing-store only the boys" sizes would drop in the same county with me," grumbled the tramp, working his arms out of the sleeves.
"The coat was plainly built for a gentleman," stated the man at the fire. "Therefore it is of no value to you."
Boston Fat surveyed the stranger with a vicious glint in his little eyes, as a pig might stare at a man who had struck it across the snout.
"Good afternoon, perfesser," he sneered.
"Why "professor," my frayed and frowsled Falstaff?"
"There you go with it--showing yourself up out of your own mouth! Words a yard long--words that would break a decent man"s teeth! You"re one of these college dudes out on the road getting stuff to write into a book.
I"ve heard about your kind. And that kind is getting too thick and plenty and you"re putting slush all over the real profesh. Quit it and go back to college. Don"t use me for your book."
This was reciprocation of derogatory sentiment with a vengeance!
The man at the fire sat back on his haunches. He finished chewing his mouthful, regarding the tramp with a languid stare that traveled from crown of his head to tip of his battered shoe.
"The only thing about a book that you would be good for," he said, "would be for use in a volume of this sort." He tapped the book in his palm. "Your anatomy could supply the binding. It is bound in pigskin."
The tramp squealed an oath in the falsetto voice that the weak and the flabby possess and took one step forward. The man at the fire came to his feet and stood erect. He was tall, and the brown eyes talked for him better than threats or bl.u.s.ter. The vagrant shifted his gaze from those eyes and backed away.
"If I hadn"t been penned in a pie-belt jail all winter up North, and all the strength starved out of me," he whined, "you wouldn"t call me a pig and get away with it."
"A person who forces himself into the presence of a gentleman who is dining mustn"t expect compliments," stated the stranger.
"You ain"t a tramp--not a real one," snarled Boston Fat.
Farr"s eyes glistened; he smiled; he continued to play on this ignoramus his satiric pranks of mystifying language:
"More of your lack of acuteness, my fat friend. Because I do not patter the flash lingo with you, you appear to take me for a college professor in disguise. _You_ are not a real tramp. You are a b.u.m, a loafer, a yeg.
You never traveled more than two hundred miles away from Hoboken--the capital city of hoboes. Have you ever hit the sage-brush trail, hiked the milk-and-honey route from Ogden through the Mormon country, decked the Overland Express, beaten the blind baggage on the Millionaires"
Flier? Hey?"
The sullen vagrant blinked stupidly.
"Or have you made the prairie run on the truss of a Wagner freight, or thrown a stone at the Fox Train crew, or beaten the face off the Katy Shack when he tried to pitch you off a gondola-car?"
"I don"t know what you"re chewing about," sneered the fat man.
"Probably not, for you are not a true man of the road. You disgrace the name of nomad, you sully an ancient profession. I"ll venture to say you don"t know who Ishmael was."
"Who said I did?"
"Not I, because I"m not a flatterer. I am going to follow the example of the man who cast pearls before swine--I"m going to cast you a pearl from one of my own poems. You may listen. It will pa.s.s your ears, that"s all.
You cannot contaminate it by taking it in, so I repeat it for my own entertainment, to refresh my memory:
"Of the morrow we take no heed, no care infests the day; Some hand-out gump and a train to jump, a grip on the rods, and away!
To the game of grab for gold we give no thought or care.
We own with you the arch of blue--our share of G.o.d"s fresh air.
One coin to clear the law, a section of rubber hose.
To soften the chafe of a freight-car"s truss, our portion of cast-off clothes, And the big wide world is ours--a t.i.tle made good by right-- By mankind"s deed to the nomad breed with the taint of the Ishmaelite.
Some from the wastes of the sage-brush, some from the orange land, Some from G.o.d"s own country, dusty and tattered and tanned.
Why are we? It"s idle to tell you--you"d never understand.
To and fro We come and go.
Old Father Ishmael"s band."
He leaned back and laughed in the tramp"s puzzled face.
"Well, what"s the answer?" scoffed Boston Fat.
The other man talked on, humor in his eyes, plainly enjoying this verbal skylarking.
"I"m afraid I cannot waste time and breath on you in an attempt to answer the riddle of the ages, to explain the wanderl.u.s.t that sent forth the tribes from the Aryan bowl of the birth of the races, my corpulent bean-pot. Your blank eyes and your flattened skull suggest a discouraging incapacity for information."
"I don"t know what you"re gabbing abut. But there"s one thing I do know.
I"ll tip "em off at the next insane-asylum I come to that I met you headed north." The tramp gathered the articles of clothing from the bushes and got down on his knees and began to fold them.
The man of the brown eyes stepped forward, laid down his little book, picked up the frock-coat and pulled it on, the fat man squealing expostulation. With serene disregard of this protest Farr b.u.t.toned the coat, smoothed it down, and then straightened his shoulders.
"You may see that it was built for a gentleman and that it fits a gentleman, friend pork-barrel."
"You shuck it off and pa.s.s it over, that"s what you do," yelped the tramp. "It"s my coat."
"It was perfectly apparent that it was not your coat when you tried it on."
"I tell you I found it hanging on a fence-post just above here."
"That was merely by accident, and you should have pa.s.sed on and left the garments for one whose frame was fitted to wear them. You ill.u.s.trate the curse of modern society. Men are so filled with the greed of getting that they grab misfits simply out of pa.s.sion for possessing."
"I"ve stood your slurs ever since I got here, but I"ll be jobeefed if I"ll stand for your swiping my property."
The man of the brown eyes smiled. His whole demeanor showed that he was more than ever hugely enjoying his own verbosity--the florid language which was both maddening and mystifying the tramp.
"Further evidence of your mean nature: a gentleman resents an insult that steals away his character much more quickly than he resents an act that steals mere property. In that little book which I have just laid down Shakespeare speaks trenchantly on that matter: "Who steals my purse steals trash . . . but he that filches from me my good name robs me . . .
and makes me poor indeed.""
The tramp gave over his work of folding, and awkwardly and c.u.mbersomely got upon his feet.
"You take off that coat and hand it over. It"s mine--I found it. I can stand a crazy man"s gab, but when any one tries to do me out of what"s my own I"ll fight."
"May I ask what you"re going to do with these garments of a gentleman which have fallen into your hands by accident?"
"I"m going to cash "em in at the nearest second-hand shop, that"s just what I"m going to do."
"Just as you sold the Sunday suit you stole from a poor man! My friend, I was insulted that day on account of you. You owe me something!"