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 pass 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 God'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 title made good by right--
By mankind's deed to the nomad breed with the taint of the