Chicago to work at it some more."

"What might your trade be?" she asts, sizing me up careful; and I thinks
I'll hand her one to chew on she ain't never hearn tell of before.

"I'm a agnostic by trade," I says. I spotted that there word in a
religious book one time, and that's the first chancet I ever has to try
it on any one. You can't never tell what them reg'lar sockdologers is
going to do till you tries them.

"I see," says she. But I seen she didn't see. And I didn't help her
none. She would of ruther died than to let on she didn't see. The Irish
is like that. Purty soon she says:

"Ain't that the dangerous kind o' work, though!"

"It is," I says. And says nothing further.

She sets down and folds her arms, like she was thinking of it, watching
my hands closet all the time I was eating, like she's looking fur scars
where something slipped when I done that agnostic work. Purty soon she
says:

"Me brother Michael was kilt at it in the old country. He was the most
vinturesome lad of thim all!"

"Did it fly up and hit him?" I asts her. I was wondering w'ether she is
making fun of me or am I making fun of her. Them Irish is like that, you
can never tell which.

"No," says she, "he fell off of it. And I'm thinking you don't know what
it is yourself." And the next thing I know I'm eased out o' the back
door and she's grinning at me scornful through the crack of it.

So I was walking slow around toward the front of the house thinking how
the Irish was a great nation, and what shall I do now, anyhow? And I
says to myself: "Danny, you was a fool to let that circus walk off and
leave you asleep in this here town with nothing over you but a barbed
wire fence this morning. Fur what ARE you going to do next? First thing
you know, you WILL be a reg'lar tramp, which some folks can't be made
to see you ain't now." And jest when I was thinking that, a feller comes
down the front steps of that house on the jump and nabs me by the coat
collar.

"Did you come out of this house?" he asts.

"I did," I says, wondering what next.

"Back in you go, then," he says, marching me forward toward them front
steps, "they've got smallpox in there."

I like to of jumped loose when he says that.

"Smallpox ain't no inducement to me, mister," I tells him. But he
twisted my coat collar tight and dug his thumbs into my neck, all the
time helping me onward with his knee from behind, and I seen they wasn't
no use pulling back. I could p