was a waiter, he said, used to working South in the winter, but it was
then too late. He had been ill. He suppressed a little hacking cough that
told its own story; he was a "lunger." Did he tramp? Yes, he said, and I
noticed that his breath smelled of whisky. He made no attempt to hide the
fact.

I explained to him that I might send him to some place in the country
where he could get better during the winter, but that it would be so
much effort wasted if he drank. He considered a while, and nodded in his
curious detached way; he guessed he could manage without it, if he had
plenty of hot coffee. The upshot of it was that he accepted my condition
and went.

[Illustration: "THERE HE STOOD, INDIFFERENT, BORED IF ANYTHING,
SHIFTLESS."]

Along in midwinter our door-bell was rung one night, and there stood
Peter. "Oh! did you come back? Too bad!" It slipped out before I had time
to think. But Peter bore with me. He smiled reassurance. "I did not run
away. The place burned down; we were sent back."

It was true; I remembered. But the taint of whisky was on his breath. "You
have been drinking again," I fretted. "You spent your money for that--"

"No," said he; "a man treated me."

"And did you have to take whisky?"

There was no trace of resentment in his retort: "Well, now, what would he
have said if I'd took milk?" It was as one humoring a child.

He went South on a waiter job. From St. Augustine he sent me a letter that
ended: "Write me in care of the post-office; it is the custom of the town
to get your letters there." Likely it was the first time in his life that
he had had a mail address. "This is a very nice place," ran his comment on
the old Spanish town, "but for business give me New York."

The _Wanderlust_ gripped Peter, and I heard from him next in the
Southwest. For years letters came from him at long intervals, showing that
he had not forgotten me. Once another tramp called on me with greeting
from him and a request for shoes. When "business" next took Peter to New
York and he called, I told him that I valued his acquaintance, but did not
care for that of many more tramps. He knew the man at once.

"Oh," he said, "isn't he a rotter? I didn't think he would do that." They
were tramping in Colorado, he explained, and one night the other man told
him of his mother. Peter, in the intimacy of the camp-fire, spoke of me.
The revelation of the other's baseness was like the betrayal of some
sacred rite. I