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“Oh, but it’s himself–himself that has come as a witness to me carrakther! Oh, but it’s himself that lifted me four wakes ago, when I was lyin’ with a mortal wakeness on the say-coast, and tuk me to his house. Oh, but it’s himself that shupported me over the faldes, and whin the chills and faver came on me and I shivered wid the cold, it was himself, God bless him, as sthripped the coat off his back, and giv it me, sayin’, ‘Take it, Dinnis, it’s shtarved with the cowld say air ye’ll be entoirely.’ Ah, but look at him–will ye, miss! Look at his swate, modist face–a blushin’ like your own, miss. Ah! look at him, will ye? He’ll be denyin’ of it in a minit–may the blessin’ uv God folly him. Look at him, miss! Ah, but it’s a swate pair ye’d make! (the rascal knew I was a married man). Ah, miss, if you could see him wroightin’ day and night with such an illigant hand of his own–(he had evidently believed from the gossip of my servants that I was a professor of chirography)–if ye could see him, miss, as I have, ye’d be proud of him.”

He stopped out of breath. I was so completely astounded I could say nothing: the tremendous indictment I had framed to utter as I opened the door vanished completely. And as the Most Beautiful Eyes in the Wurruld turned gratefully to mine–well–

I still retained enough principle to ask the ladies to withdraw, while I would take upon myself the duty of examining into the case of my friend, the Tramp, and giving him such relief as was required. (I did not know until afterward, however, that the rascal had already despoiled their scant purses of three dollars and fifty cents.) When the door was closed upon them I turned upon him.

“You infernal rascal!”

“Ah, Captain, and would ye be refusin’ ME a carrakther and me givin’ YE such a one as Oi did! God save us! but if ye’d hav’ seen the luk that the purty one give ye. Well, before the chills and faver bruk me spirits entirely, when I was a young man, and makin’ me tin dollars a week brick-makin’, it’s meself that wud hav’ given–“

“I consider,” I broke in, “that a dollar is a fair price for your story, and as I shall have to take it all back and expose you before the next twenty-four hours pass, I think you had better hasten to Milwaukee, New York, or Louisiana.”

I handed him the dollar. “Mind, I don’t want to see your face again.”

“Ye wun’t, captain.”

And I did not.

But it so chanced that later in the season, when the migratory inhabitants had flown to their hot-air registers in Boston and Providence, I breakfasted with one who had lingered. It was a certain Boston lawyer,–replete with principle, honesty, self-discipline, statistics, aesthetics, and a perfect consciousness of possessing all these virtues, and a full recognition of their market values. I think he tolerated me as a kind of foreigner, gently but firmly waiving all argument on any topic, frequently distrusting my facts, generally my deductions, and always my ideas. In conversation he always appeared to descend only half way down a long moral and intellectual staircase, and always delivered his conclusions over the balusters.

I had been speaking of my friend, the Tramp. “There is but one way of treating that class of impostors; it is simply to recognize the fact that the law calls him a ‘vagrant,’ and makes his trade a misdemeanor. Any sentiment on the other side renders you particeps criminis. I don’t know but an action would lie against you for encouraging tramps. Now, I have an efficacious way of dealing with these gentry.” He rose and took a double-barreled fowling-piece from the chimney. “When a tramp appears on my property, I warn him off. If he persists, I fire on him–as I would on any criminal trespasser.”