MY TRAMP. 369 



with a shake would tell me, " I'd better go down and see if 

 all was right." Once, when I went down on hearing an 

 unusual commotion, I found my tramp taking the table-cloth 

 from its place in the dish closet to do duty as a sheet, the 

 horse blanket being too rough for his delicate system. Pity- 

 ing the poor wretch, I did not report this to my wife, know- 

 ing it would only make a fuss. About midnight I was awak- 

 ened by the announcement that the house was full of smoke, 

 when, rushing down stairs without inquiring as to what man- 

 ner of smoke it was, I found my traveling friend sitting in 

 the middle of the room surrounded with a dense vapor, which 

 a pipe, charged with jail tobacco, was giving forth. This he 

 put by at my urgent request, when I again retired, to be again 

 disturbed at various intervals until morning. When my wife 

 did not hear suspicious noises, Bridget did ; so that between 

 them both I made more trips than did Mother Hubbard in 

 the interest of her dog of wonderful abilities. In the dawn's 

 early light I saw him peacefully slumbering in his chair, with 

 his hat down over his eyes, doubtlessly dreaming of the loved 

 ones of his far-off home on the Po. 



When I came down stairs preparatory to stirring up the 

 matinal fires and setting the day's work going generally, what 

 a sight met my sleep-robbed eyes! Where I had left a com- 

 plete realization of the materialization of the genus tramp I 

 found his disembodied clothes. These, sometime during the 

 night, he had so stuffed with cushions and other appliances as 

 to much resemble the natural man as seen in the dim light of the 

 stove, while his hat hung rakishly on a broom-handle which 

 stood back of his chair. It w^as this object I had seen when I 

 had last come down stairs, and hence the quiet that afterward 

 reigned. The same day on which my tramp made his ap- 

 pearance my wife had gone to the city and bought me a com- 

 plete suit of best clothes, which she had shown me in the evening, 

 and then laid them away in a cupboard in the sitting-room. 



