The Road

It was in Reno, Nevada, in the summer of 1892. Also, it was fair-time, and the town was filled with petty crooks and tin-horns, to say nothing of a vast and hungry horde of hoboes. It was the hungry hoboes that made the town a \"hungry\" town. They \"battered\" the back doors of the homes of the citizens until the back doors became unresponsive.

A hard town for \"scoffings,\" was what the hoboes called it at that time. I know that I missed many a meal, in spite of the fact that I could \"throw my feet\" with the next one when it came to \"slamming a gate for a \"poke-out\" or a \"set-down,\" \"or hitting for a light piece\" on the street. Why, I was so hard put in that town, one day, that I gave the porter the slip and invaded the private car of some itinerant millionnaire.

The train started as I made the platform, and I headed for the aforesaid millionnaire with the porter one jump behind and reaching for me. It was a dead heat, for I reached the millionnaire at the same instant that the porter reached me. I had no time for formalities. \"Gimme a quarter to eat on,\" I blurted out. And as I live, that millionnaire dipped into his pocket and gave me ? just ? precisely ? a quarter.