"You've hit it, sir," grinned the guest, "right behind the ear. But a job will bring 'em and my face won't. It's been overworked lately, that face, and I'm restin' it. I'd hock it, but it's all I've got, and besides I guess I've got all it'll bring already."
"Shouldn't wonder," grinned Harkins in reply, surveying with growing interest the traveller, for such his appearance bespoke him. "Did it bring you here?"
"No, they didn't see it," laughed the stranger. "I came by freight from Cleveland. It was a pork train—and I'm on it yet," with a sweeping gesture that indicated the ensemble of his frayed and dusty habiliments. "No low bridge for me that trip," he continued. "The brakemen rode on top, but the bumpers were good enough for me. Ain't so risky."
Harkins quizzically looked him over. He was uniquely worth the trouble. A battered cap, tipped rakishly over one ear, topped a mat of curly red hair of the peculiar bricky hue that hisses a sibilant Celtic brogue in whilom wind-stirrings. Beneath a broad forehead there danced and rioted two Irish eyes, pale blue pools in an environing forest of freckles. Nature had been generous with mouths when he transpired and had given him enough for two. He had further distended it with much smiling. His cheeks and chin were rough with a sandy stubble; not over-coarse, for he was young. He was slender and of medium height. His garments, in an advanced state of senility, exuded cinders at every pore. As for his shoes, the poor devil was literally on his uppers.
"I guess," said Harkins, not unkindly, "I guess, my boy, we're full."
"You're lucky," murmured the stranger, gray discouragement in his face. "Wish I was. I'm a hollow tube just now."
He turned suddenly toward Harkins, despair in the eyes grown dark with trouble, the light and the laughter fled.
"My God!" he gulped, "I haven't eaten a morsel for hours! I want to earn my livin'! I know I look like a hobo,—I am one, I suppose,—but I'm a workin' one. I'm a bum tramp reporter, it's true enough, you only have to look at me. But try me, Mr. Harkins, just give me a chance to make good, for I tell you I can get the news!"
Harkins involuntarily thrust his hand into his trousers pocket. A gesture restrained him.
"Mr. Harkins," said the visitor, with an odd dignity, grotesque enough in his shabby garb, "no hand-outs. When I can't earn what I eat, I'll cut the game."