“Say, you’re all right, mister!” ventured a tramp to the proprietor, as he walked by.

“Bet your God-damned life I’m all right!... because I ain’t nothin’ but a bum myself ... yes, an’ I’m not ashamed of it, neither ... before I struck this burg an’ started this “ham-and” and made it pay, I was on the road same es all o’ you!”

“Kin I have more pancakes, boss, an’ another cup of coffee?”

“You sure can, bo!... es I was sayin’, I’m a bum myself, an’ proud of it ... and I think these here damn bulls (policemen ... who were sitting nearby, waiting for us to finish) have mighty little to ’tend to, roundin’ up you boys, now the orange-pickin’ season’s over with, an’ puttin’ you away like this ... why, if any one of them was half as decent as one o’ you bums—­”

“Sh! fer Christ’s sake!” I admonished, “they’re hearing you.”

“That’s jest what I want ’em to do ...  I don’t owe nothin’ to no man, an’ it’s time someone told ’em somethin’.”

* * * * *

Breakfast over, we were marched off to the courthouse.  We were turned loose together in a large room.  We felt so good with the sausage, cakes and coffee in our bellies, that we pushed each other about, sang, jigged, whistled.

As we had walked in, I had asked, of the cop who walked by my side—­who seemed affable....

“Say, mister, after all what’s the idea?”

“We had to make an example,” he returned, frankly.

“I don’t quite get you!”

“Last week a bunch of bums dropped off here at our town, and they almost ran the diggings for about twenty-four hours ... insulted women on the streets ... robbed ice-boxes ... even stole the clothes off the lines.”

“In other words, you mean that a bunch of drunken yeggs dropped in on the town, gutted it, and then jumped out ... and we poor harmless bums are the ones that have to pay.”

“—­guess that’s about how it is.”

I passed the word along the line.  My companion tramps cursed the yegg and his ways....

“They’re always raisin’ hell ... an’ we git the blame ... when all we want is not loot, but hand-outs and a cup o’ coffee ... and a piece of change now and then.”

The yegg, the tiger among tramps—­the criminal tramp—­despises the ordinary bum and the “gaycat.”  And they in turn fear him for his ruthlessness and recklessness.

He joins with them at their camp-fires ... rides with them on the road ... robs his store or house, or cracks his safe, then flies on, taking the blinds or decking on top of a “flyer.”  The law, missing the right quarry, descends on the slower-moving, harmless bum.  And often some poor “fall-guy” gets a good “frame-up” for a job he never thought of ... and the majesty of the law stands vindicated.

* * * * *

The charge against us was vagrancy.  We were tried by twos.

“Come on, buddy!... you an’ your pal.”