The man grinned his appreciation. “You can’t hand them out any too quick, partner.”
Without further argument, Nash took two silver dollars from his pocket and placed them in the other’s open, expectant palm.
“Thanks, partner,” the man said, his long fingers closing over the money. “These cart wheels sure look good to me. You’re a gentleman, you are, even if you do like this burg.”
The vagrant started away, and then impulsively stopped.
“Say,” he remarked, “I want to show my appreciation for this here gift of yours. Do you like poetry?”
“I’m very fond of it,” responded Nash. “Why?”
The other man took the book he had been reading from his pocket, peered at the title, and thrust it into Nash’s hand.
“Take this. I can’t swallow the stuff. Poetry never did make a hit with me.”
Nash examined the little, leather-bound volume. It was a new, well-bound edition of Kipling’s “Barrack-room Ballads.”
“Oh, it don’t belong to me,” the man said, apparently reading Nash’s mind. “I found it on a bench about an hour ago. Just read it, partner, and remember the down-and-outer that wanted to get back to God’s country.”