"Quit yer kiddin'," he presently remarked.
"I'm not kidding."
"You're a lawyer?"
"Yes."
"Well, I'm a bum," said the man. He tilted up his bristled chin; his seamed throat swelled; sounds that, because they were not speech, Luke took to be song, came from his throat. He sang:
"The Spring has came, I'm just out o' jail;
I haven't any money an' I haven't any bail!
Halleyloolyah, I'm a bum—bum!
Halleyloolyah, bum again!
Halleyloolyah, give——"
He stopped abruptly. "I'm sorry for you," he said.
"Why?" asked Luke. He thought the sentiment of that song as horrible as the creature that sang it.
"Because you're all tied up with everything. But me—there ain't nothin' can tie me. You fellers is in jail all the time an' don't know it; I'm only in jail when you fellers can ketch me and put me there."
Luke realized that he had found a philosopher who, however mistaken in his deductions, had seen quite as much of the world as Jack Porcellis. He attempted the vernacular.