"But you don't rustle tea that way," said Hamilton, touching the tin
pannikin with his knuckle.

"'Windy' looks after that."

"I am not without some small means," explained the 'Windy Duke,' "but my
income would not permit my living in any sufficiently attractive city
in a manner suitable to my desires. By adopting this vagrant life,
however, I am able to relinquish a part of my very moderate annuity to
my sister, and still retain sufficient to share up with my
fellow-adventurers when times are hard or 'Jolly's' persuasive tongue is
not quite up to the mark."

"But you didn't tell me," said Hamilton, turning to 'Jolly Joe,' "why
you started going on the road. You said you didn't like work, but where
had you tried it?"

"I'll make the story short," was the reply. "I'm a railroad section
hand, an' was lookin' to be made a foreman on a section near New York. I
had a pile of friends among the men just above me, and I believe I would
have worked up pretty rapidly."

"You would be president of the road by now, 'Jolly,'" put in the 'Duke.'

"I'd be goin' up, anyhow," the other replied. "But one day an order came
along from headquarters changin' the make-up of the gangs, an' next week
I found myself the only American on an Italian gang, under an Italian
foreman. All of us were shifted around the same way. The foreman knew a
little English--not much--an' he tried to give me orders in mixed
English an' Italian. I told him I wouldn't do anythin' I wasn't told to
do in straight American, an' when he started in jabberin' and abusin' me
with every bad name he'd heard since he landed, why, I gave him a
hammerin'. So, just as 'Hatchet Ben' here was driven out by Slovaks, it
was a gang of Italians that gave me my throw-down. I tell you America's
all right for everybody but the American He doesn't stand a show."

"That sounds hard for the American working-man," the boy said, "but
there must be a lot of them working somewhere, they're not all tramping
it."

"The back-country farmer is an American nearly every time," 'Hatchet
Ben' replied, "the foreigners don't get so far away from the cities and
towns. I don't know why."

"I think I know the reason of that," volunteered Hamilton. "I heard some
census men talking about it, and one of them had spent a long time in
Italy. He said that while it was true plenty of the peasants worked in
the fields, they usually lived together in villages and went to the
fields in the morning. Then