ngaged in a hopeless fight. The president
offered yesterday to take back seventy-five per cent. of the men, and
immediately they said he was running. This morning the offer is for
sixty per cent., but they won't have it. Have they offered to balm you
with promotion?"

"Yes."

"Varnished cars, eh?"

"Yep--finest train on the road."

"And you told them?--"

"No."

"Well, I think you did right. Shall we go and peck?"

"Have you been working?"

"No. I've been vag'd. When the police got through with me, and returned
my pie-card I turned it in for a commutation ticket, and there are still
a few feeds to the good on it. The commutation ticket is the proper card
for a gentleman in straitened circumstances. You are not obliged to
gorge yourself at early morn with a whole twenty-cent breakfast when all
you really need is a cup of black coffee and a roll. Besides, when a man
is not working he should not eat so much. I frequently edge in with a
crowd of other gentlemen and procure a nice warm lunch at one of the
beer saloons, omitting the beer. By the way, the free lunch room is a
good place for the study of human nature. There you will see the poor
working man fish up his last five cents to pay for a beer in order to
get a hot lunch, and if you look closely, spot a two-by-four-shopkeeper,
for instance, as he enters the front door, and keep your eye on him
until he goes out again, you will observe that he hasn't lost a cent. A
little dark man who runs a three-ball in La Salle Street makes a
business of this, and of loaning money at fifty per cent. and seems to
be doing quite well."

When they had reached a "Kohlsaat" the two men sat down, or up, and when
they had finished Patsy paid for the meal.

"If you see a man who has wood to saw or a piano to tune or anything
that isn't scabbin' I wish you'd give me a character and get me the
job," said the Philosopher when they had reached the sidewalk.

"You follow my smoke," said Patsy, after a moment's meditation, and he
strolled down the crowded street, turning and twisting through the
multitude like a man trying to lose a dog, but he couldn't lose the
Philosopher. Presently he stepped in front of a big building, waited for
his companion, and they went in together.

"Mr. Stonaker," said Patsy when he had been admitted to the general
manager's private office, "I have a favor to ask. I want you to give a
friend of mine a job. He's a switchman, and a good trainman, but he wi