"Cleveland, what is a tramp?"
No answer.
"Wasson, accommodate me, if you please, by introducing the extremity of your boot to Mr. Cleveland."
"Ouch! What in thunder are you kicking me for, Wasson?"
"I'm not kicking you; extremes meet, my boy, and there was a natural repulsion. Hough wants to know what a tramp is!"
"How do I know! Ah! here comes Smythe; he will tell you."
"Ah, Smythe, my boy, just in time! Wasson don't know any thing, and Cleveland won't tell what he does know; what's a tramp? There now—that's a good fellow—don't open your mouth so; you'll injure your neck,—just tell me all you know about them."
"What's a which? Tramp!"
"Don't be a poll parrot, Smythe. Tell me what they are. You've been to college and learned to row, and box, and play base ball, and ought to know nearly every thing. Here I am continually reading about them. Every paper you pick up is full of them. Tramp, tramp, TRAMP, from one end of the paper to the other. There is not a chicken purloined off a roost; a man killed; a house fired; a train ditched; virtue outraged, vice embellished, or deviltry of any kind perpetrated, but this omnipresent scape-goat of the nineteenth century appears to be at the bottom of it all. Now I want to know what a tramp is."
"I am sorry that I cannot enlighten you, Hough, but—"