spectacle of the fool old human race never getting a chance to sit down
by the side of the road and pick the pebbles out of its shoes.
Everybody's feet hurt and everybody's carrying a blood pressure that's
bound to blow the roof off. I tell you, Deering, civilization hasn't got
anything on the gypsies but soap and sanitary plumbing, I'm just
forty-five and for years I've kept in motion most of the time. Alone of
great travellers William Jennings Bryan has reviewed more water-tanks
than I. I find the same delight in Butte, Peoria, Galesburg, Des Moines,
Ashtabula, and Bangor, in Tallahassee, Birmingham, and Waco, that others
seek in London, Paris, and Vienna--and it's all American stuff--business
of flags flying and Constitution being chanted offstage by a choir of a
million voices! I've lived in coal-camps in Colorado, wintered with Maine
lumbermen, hopped the ties with hobos, and enjoyed the friendship of
thieves. I don't mean to brag, but I suppose there isn't a really
first-rate crook in the country that I don't know. And down in the
underworld they look on me--if I may modestly say it--as an old reliable
friend. I've found these contacts immensely instructive, as you may
imagine. Don't get nervous! I never stole anything in my life."

He thrust his fingers into his inside waistcoat pocket, and drew out a
packet of bills, neatly folded, and opened them for Deering's wondering
inspection.

"I beg of you don't jump to the conclusion that I roll in wealth. Money
is poison to me; I hate the very smell of it--haven't a cent of my own in
the world. This belongs to my chauffeur--carry it as a precaution
merely."

Hood relighted his pipe, and dreamily watched the match blacken and curl
in his fingers.

"Your chauffeur?" Deering suggested, like a child prompting a parent in
the midst of an absorbing story.

"Oh, yes! Cassowary"--he pronounced the word lingeringly as though to
prolong his pleasure in it--"real name doesn't matter. His father rolled
up a big wad cutting the forest primeval into lumber, and left it to
Cassowary--matter of a million or two. Cassowary had been driven to drink
by an unhappy love-affair when I plucked him as a brand from burning
Broadway. Nice chap, but too much self-indulgence; never had any
discipline. He's pretty well broken in now, and as we seemed to need each
other we follow the long trail together. Manage to hit it off first-rate.
He's still mooning over the girl; tough that he can't hav