i 2 6 TRAMPS 



on quarters provided by the counties. Should he be a 

 shrewd fellow, he learns that spells of enforced work 

 send him back with renewed zest to his irregularities ; 

 and he may agree with that sage member of the class 

 whom we remember to have forgathered with in the 

 pages of Dickens, that hours and the diet " which is 

 regular, mind you, freshens a cove up a bit and does 

 him good." Then in the spring, summer, and autumn 

 that is to say, for nearly nine months in the year 

 from March to November he is in his glory. To do 

 him justice, he is no mollycoddle. If he shrivels him- 

 self up and puts on a piteous face in a bitter wind in 

 March or a drenching day in November, it is only to 

 move your compassion, and invite you to the exercise 

 of melting charity. Should you chance to catch a sight 

 of him while you are invisible to his quick, restless 

 eyes, you may see him stumping along with loose coat 

 flying back a La Mark Tapley, occasionally stopping 

 short in the middle of a stentorian whistle to blow on 

 the blue hands he draws out of his ragged breeches 

 pockets. It may be as good as a scene in a farce should 

 he become aware of you in the midst of the hilarity you 

 have intruded upon. Ten to one he loses his presence 

 of mind, and forgetting that he is proclaiming himself 

 a shameless impostor, makes up at a moment's notice 

 for an ideal of abject misery. It is but occasionally 

 that, taken so unfairly by surprise, he may show the 

 highest qualities of his calling, and, recognising instan- 

 taneously that disguise is absurd, may carry himself past 

 you with surly defiance. 



