"Look at me!" said Joe, clenching his fists and squaring his shoulders. "I must be close on forty years, maybe on the graveyard side of it, for all I know. I've horsed it since ever I can mind; I've worked like a mule for years, and what have I to show for it all to-day, matey? Not the price of an ounce of tobacco! A midsummer scarecrow wouldn't wear the duds that I've to wrap around my hide! A cockle-picker that has no property only when the tide is out is as rich as I am. Not the price of an ounce of tobacco! There is something wrong with men like us, surely, when we're treated like swine in a sty for all the years of our life. It's not so bad here, but it's in the big towns that a man can feel it most. No person cares for the likes of us, Flynn. I've worked nearly ev'rywhere; I've helped to build bridges, dams, houses, ay, and towns! When they were finished, what happened? Was it for us—the men who did the buildin'—to live in the homes that we built, or walk through the streets that we laid down? No earthly chance of that! It was always, 'Slide! we don't need you any more,' and then a man like me, as helped to build a thousand houses big as castles, was hellish glad to get the shelter of a ten-acre field and a shut gate between me and the winds of night. I've spent all my money, have I? It's bloomin' easy to spend all that fellows like us can earn. When I was in London I saw a lady spend as much on fur to decorate her carcase with as would keep me in beer and tobacco for all the rest of my life. And that same lady would decorate a dog in ribbons and fol-the-dols, and she wouldn't give me the smell of a crust when I asked her for a mouthful of bread. What could you expect from a woman who wears the furry hide of some animal round her neck, anyhow? We are not thought as much of as dogs, Flynn. By God! them rich buckos do eat an awful lot. Many a time I crept up to a window just to see them gorgin' themselves."
"I have often done the same kind of thing," I said.
"Most men do," answered Joe. "You've heard of old Moses goin' up the hill to have a bit peep at the Promist Land. He was just like me and you, Flynn, wantin' to have a peep at the things which he'd never lay his claws on."
"Those women who sit half-naked at the table have big appetites," I said.
"They're all gab and guts, like young crows," said Moleskin. "And they think more of their dogs than they do of men like me and you. I'm an Antichrist!"
"A what?"
"One of them sort of fellows as throws bombs at kings."
"You mean an Anarchist."
"Well, whatever they are, I'm one. What is the good of kings, of fine-feathered ladies, of churches, of anything in the country, to men like me and you? One time, 'twas when I started trampin' about, I met an old man on the road and we mucked about, the two of us as mates, for months afterwards. One night in the winter time, as we were sleepin' under a hedge, the old fellow got sick, and he began to turn over and over on his beddin' of frost and his blankets of snow, which was not the best place to put a sick man, as you know yourself. As the night wore on, he got worse and worse. I tried to do the best I could for the old fellow, gave him my muffler and my coat, but the pains in his guts was so much that I couldn't hardly prevent him from rollin' along the ground on his stomach. He would do anythin' just to take his mind away from the pain that he was sufferin'. At last I got him to rise and walk, and we trudged along till we came to a house by the roadside. 'Twas nearly midnight and there was a light in one of the windows, so I thought that I would call at the door and ask for a bit of help. My mate, who bucked up somewhat when we were walkin', got suddenly worse again, and fell against the gatepost near beside the road, and stuck there as if glued on to the thing. I left him by himself and went up to the door and knocked. A man drew the bolts and looked out at me. He had his collar on back to front, so I knew that he was a clergyman.
"'What do you want?' he asked.