"--like oyster sandwiches?" he asked.
* * * * *
He didn't even wait to let me choose my own food.
"Two oyster sandwiches and--a cup of coffee," he barked.
While I ate he stepped outside and talked with another friend.
* * * * *
"Good-bye," he was bidding me, extending a tiny hand, the back of it
covered with steel-coloured hairs, "you'd better go back up to
Jersey--just heard your daddy is very sick there ... he might need your
help."
I thought cautiously. Evidently he knew nothing of my father's having
been sent home by his lodge. I affected to be perturbed....
"In that case--could you--advance me my fare to Haberford?"
I'd wangle a _few_ dollars out of him.
My grandfather's answer was a silent, granite smile.
"--just want to see what you can cajole out of the old man, eh? No,
Johnnie--I'll leave you to make your way back in the same way you've
made your way to Washington ... from all accounts railroad fare is the
least of your troubles."
My whole hatred of him, so carefully concealed while I thought there was
some hopes of putting through my educational scheme, now broke out--
"_You"_--I began, cursing....
"I knew that's the way you felt all along ... better run along now, or
I'll say I don't know you, and have you taken up for soliciting alms."
* * * * *
Before nightfall I was well on my way to Philadelphia. For a while I
resigned myself to the life of a tramp. I hooked up with another gang of
hoboes, in the outskirts of that city, and taught them the plan of the
ex-cook that we'd crowned king down in Texas....
I kept myself in reading matter by filching the complete works of
Sterne (in one volume) and the poetry of Milton--from an outside stand
of a second hand book store....
* * * * *
--left that gang, and started forth alone again. I became a walking bum,
if a few miles a day constitutes taking that appellation. I walked ahead
a few miles, then sat down and studied my Milton, or dug deep into
_Tristram Shandy_. Hungry, I went up to farmhouse or backdoor of city
dwelling, and asked for food....
* * * * *