It was as though the man stood clothed in outward and visible signs of unseen realities, enveloped in the rigid habit of his own wrong-doing, draped in the mystery of inherited tendencies, and cloaked in the stern facts of a hard environment. And yet, as beneath the filthy outer covering there was a human being, so under these veiling, unseen vestures was a man, a living soul created by the Almighty.
I could hear him muttering gruffly to himself as he slowly descended to his turn at the foot of the steps.
“Well, Weary, where are you from? A hobo from Hoboville, I guess,” and the officer’s voice rang strong and clear up the staircase to the dim landing, where stood the waiting line of men.
The two slummers laughed aloud.
“From Maine,” said the tramp. The voice came hoarse and thin and broken-winded from a throat eaten out by disease.
“Well, you’re a rare one, if you’re a Yankee. But what brought you to Chicago?”
“Lookin’ for work at the World’s Fair.”
“You lie, you lazy loafer. The last thing you’re looking for is work. You all tell that World’s Fair lie. There’s been as many of you in Chicago every winter for the last ten years as there is this winter.”
The man was stung.
“I’ve as good a right here as you,” he said.