Being one in whom the race instinct ran powerfully, and who was not
untainted of antipathies to red men and yellow men and black men and all
men not wholly white, Richard did not pause to inquire the rights and
the wrongs of the altercation. He seized upon the topmost person of
color and pitched him into the street. Then he pitched another after
him. The third, getting some alarming notions of what was going on,
arose and fled. None of the three came back; for discretion is not
absent from the African, and those whom Richard personally disposed of
felt as might ones who had escaped from some malignant providence which
they did not think it wise or fitting to further tempt. As for number
three, he was pleased to find himself a block away, and did all he might
to add to it, like a miser to his hoard.

Negroes gone, Richard set the white man on his feet, and asked him how
he fared. That gentleman shook himself and announced that he was
uninjured. Then he said that he was drunk, which was an unnecessary
confidence. It developed that he followed the trade of printer; also
that he had just come to town. He had no money, he had no place to
sleep; and, what was wonderful to Richard, he appeared in no whit cast
down by his bankrupt and bedless state. He had had money; but like many
pleasant optimistic members of his mystery of types, he had preferred to
spend it in liquor, leaving humdrum questions, such as bed and board, to
solve themselves.

"For," said the bedless one, "I'm a tramp printer!" And he flung forth
the adjective as though it were a title of respect.

Having invested some little exertion in the affairs of the stranger,
Richard thought he might as well go forward and invest a little money.
With that he went out of his way to lead the drunken one to a cheap