My residence is everywhere; the sky is my coverlet. I am one of
the dispossessed, a sansculotte, a proletarian, or, in simpler
phraseology addressed to your understanding, a tramp.'

"'What the hell--?'

"'Nay, fair sir, a tramp, a man of devious ways and strange
lodgements and multifarious--'

"'Quit it!' he shouted. 'What do you want?'

"'I want money.'

"He started and half reached for an open drawer where must have
reposed a revolver, then bethought himself and growled, 'This is
no bank.'

"'Nor have I checks to cash. But I have, sir, an idea, which, by
your leave and kind assistance, I shall transmute into cash. In
short, how does a tramp sketch, done by a tramp to the life, strike
you? Are you open to it? Do your readers hunger for it? Do they
crave after it? Can they be happy without it?'

"I thought for a moment that he would have apoplexy, but he quelled
the unruly blood and said he liked my nerve. I thanked him and
assured him I liked it myself. Then he offered me a cigar and said
he thought he'd do business with me.

"'But mind you,' he said, when he had jabbed a bunch of copy paper
into my hand and given me a pencil from his vest pocket, 'mind you,