ou, pardner--you can believe it or not--I never turned a
man down before."

The hobo grunted and bit into a doughnut and Bunker Hill settled down
beside him.

"Say," he began in an easy, conversational tone, "did you ever hear
about the hobo that was walking the streets in Globe? Well, he was broke
and up against it--hadn't et for two days and the rustling was awful
poor--but as he was walking along the street in front of that big
restaurant he saw a new meal ticket on the sidewalk. His luck had been
so bad he wouldn't even look at it but at last when he went by he took
another slant and see that it was good--there wasn't but one meal
punched out."

"Aw, rats," scoffed Big Boy, "are you still telling that one? There was
a miner came by just as he reached down to grab it and punched out every
meal with his hob-nails."

"That's the story," admitted Bunker, "but say, here's another one--did
you ever hear of the hobo Mark Twain? Well, he was a well-known
character in the old days around Globe--kinder drifted around from one
camp to the other and worked all his friends for a dollar. That was his
regular graft, he never asked for more and he never asked the same man
twice, but once every year he'd make the rounds and the old-timers kind
of put up with him. Great story-teller and all that and one day I was
sitting talking with him when a mining man came into the saloon. He
owned a mine, over around Mammoth somewhere, and he wanted a man to herd
it. It was seventy-five a month, with all expenses paid and all you had
to do was to stick around and keep some outsider from jumping in. Well,
when he asked for a man I saw right away it was just the place for old
Mark and I began to kind of poke him in the ribs, but when he didn't
answer I hollered to the mining man that I had just the feller he
wanted. Well, the mining man came over and put it up to Mark, and
everybody present began to boost. He was such an old bum that we wanted
to get rid of him and there wasn't a thing he could kick on. There was
plenty of grub, a nice house to live in and he didn't have to work a
tap; but in spite of all that, after he'd asked all kinds of questions,
Old Mark said he'd have to think it over. So he went over to the bar and
began to figger on some paper and at last he came back and said he was
sorry but he couldn't afford to take it.

"'Well, why not?' we asks, because we knowed he was a bum, but he says:
'Well gentlemen, I'll tell ye, it's t