“You have stolen—in most dirty style. I whipped you for that job. Now will you stay licked for some time?”
“Yes.”
“You'll go on about your own business, will you, without any more foolish talk about those garments?”
“Yes.”
“Are you sorry you stole from that good woman who fed you?”
“Yes.”
The man of the brown eyes swung himself off his prostrate victim, as a rider dismounts from a horse, and the tramp sat up, moaning and patting his purple face.
“I never had no luck, never,” he blubbered. “I was kicked out of jail before the weather got warmed up, I was thrown in last fall just when the Indian summer was beginning. When other fellows get hand-outs of pie I get cold potatoes and bannock bread. I have to walk when other fellows ride. I'm too fat for the trucks and they can always see me on the blind baggage. I'll keep on walking. I never had no luck in all my life.”
He rolled upon his hands and knees and then stood up. He started away, wholly cowed, whining like a quill-pig, bewailing his luck.
“Luck!” the man of the brown eyes shouted after him in a tone which expressed anger and regret. “What do you know about luck, you animated lard-pail? A thing like you is in luck when he is in jail where there is no workshop. Better luck than that is too good for you. Hold on one minute! Turn around and look at me.”