fly, that's goin' some." "The Northern Pacific's a bad road
now." "Salinas is on the 'hog,' the 'bulls' is 'horstile.'" "I got
'pinched' at El Paso, along with Moke Kid." "Talkin' of 'poke-outs,'
wait till you hit the French country out of Montreal--not a word of
English--you say, 'Mongee, Madame, mongee, no spika da French,' an'
rub your stomach an' look hungry, an' she gives you a slice of
sow-belly an' a chunk of dry 'punk.'"

And I continued to lie in the sand and listen. These wanderers made my
oyster-piracy look like thirty cents. A new world was calling to me in
every word that was spoken--a world of rods and gunnels, blind
baggages and "side-door Pullmans," "bulls" and "shacks," "floppings"
and "chewin's," "pinches" and "get-aways," "strong arms" and
"bindle-stiffs," "punks" and "profesh." And it all spelled Adventure.
Very well; I would tackle this new world. I "lined" myself up
alongside those road-kids. I was just as strong as any of them, just
as quick, just as nervy, and my brain was just as good.

After the swim, as evening came on, they dressed and went up town. I
went along. The kids began "battering" the "main-stem" for "light
pieces," or, in other words, begging for money on the main street. I
had never begged in my life, and this was the hardest thing for me to
stomach when I first went on The Road. I had absurd notions about
begging. My philosophy, up to that time, was that it was finer to
steal than to beg; and that robbery was finer still because the risk
and the penalty were proportionately greater. As an oyster pirate I
had already earned convictions at the hands of justice, which, if I
had tried to serve them, would have required a thousand years in
state's prison. To rob was manly; to beg was sordid and despicable.
But I developed in the days to come all right, all right, till I came
to look upon begging as a joyous prank, a game of wits, a
nerve-exerciser.

That first night, however, I couldn't rise to it; and the result was
that when the kids were ready to go to a restaurant and eat, I wasn't.
I was broke. Meeny Kid, I think it was, gave me the price, and we all
ate together. But while I ate, I meditated. The receiver, it was said,
was as bad as the thief; Meeny Kid had done the begging, and I was
profiting by it. I decided that the receiver was a whole lot worse
than the thief, and that it shouldn't happen again. And it didn't. I
turned out next day and threw my feet as well as the next o