There were fully a score of Americans in the crowd, the non-sailors being “tramps royal,” the men whose “mate is the wind that tramps the world.”  They were all cheerful, facing things with the pluck which is their chief characteristic and which seems never to desert them, withal they were cursing the country with lurid metaphors quite refreshing after a month of unimaginative, monotonous Cockney swearing.  The Cockney has one oath, and one oath only, the most indecent in the language, which he uses on any and every occasion.  Far different is the luminous and varied Western swearing, which runs to blasphemy rather than indecency.  And after all, since men will swear, I think I prefer blasphemy to indecency; there is an audacity about it, an adventurousness and defiance that is better than sheer filthiness.

There was one American tramp royal whom I found particularly enjoyable.  I first noticed him on the street, asleep in a doorway, his head on his knees, but a hat on his head that one does not meet this side of the Western Ocean.  When the policeman routed him out, he got up slowly and deliberately, looked at the policeman, yawned and stretched himself, looked at the policeman again as much as to say he didn’t know whether he would or wouldn’t, and then sauntered leisurely down the sidewalk.  At the outset I was sure of the hat, but this made me sure of the wearer of the hat.

In the jam inside I found myself alongside of him, and we had quite a chat.  He had been through Spain, Italy, Switzerland, and France, and had accomplished the practically impossible feat of beating his way three hundred miles on a French railway without being caught at the finish.  Where was I hanging out? he asked.  And how did I manage for “kipping"?—­which means sleeping.  Did I know the rounds yet?  He was getting on, though the country was “horstyl” and the cities were “bum.”  Fierce, wasn’t it?  Couldn’t “batter” (beg) anywhere without being “pinched.”  But he wasn’t going to quit it.  Buffalo Bill’s Show was coming over soon, and a man who could drive eight horses was sure of a job any time.  These mugs over here didn’t know beans about driving anything more than a span.  What was the matter with me hanging on and waiting for Buffalo Bill?  He was sure I could ring in somehow.

And so, after all, blood is thicker than water.  We were fellow-countrymen and strangers in a strange land.  I had warmed to his battered old hat at sight of it, and he was as solicitous for my welfare as if we were blood brothers.  We swapped all manner of useful information concerning the country and the ways of its people, methods by which to obtain food and shelter and what not, and we parted genuinely sorry at having to say good-bye.