"Burroughs, Edgar Rice - The Oakdale Affair" - читать интересную книгу автора (Burroughs Edgar Rice)

fitting suit and upon his oval face and his laughing
brown eyes. For several seconds he stood there looking
at the men around the fire. None of them had noticed
him.

"Tramps!" thought the youth. "Regular tramps." He
wondered that they had not seen him, and then, clear-
ing his throat, he said: "Hello, tramps!"

Six heads snapped up or around. Six pairs of eyes,
blear or foxy, were riveted upon the boyish figure of
the housebreaker. "Wotinel!" ejaculated a frowzy gentle-
man in a frock coat and golf cap. "Wheredju blow
from?" inquired another. "'Hello, tramps'!" mimicked a
third.

The youth came slowly toward the fire. "I saw your
fire," he said, "and I thought I'd stop. I'm a tramp, too,
you know."

"Oh," sighed the elderly person in the frock coat.
"He's a tramp, he is. An' does he think gents like us has
any time for tramps? An' where might he be trampin',
sonny, without his maw?"

The youth flushed. "Oh say!" he cried; "you needn't
kid me just because I'm new at it. You all had to start
sometime. I've always longed for the free life of a tramp;
and if you'll let me go along with you for a little while,
and teach me, I'll not bother you; and I'll do whatever
you say."

The elderly person frowned. "Beat it, kid!" he com-
manded. "We ain't runnin' no day nursery. These you
see here is all the real thing. Maybe we asks fer a hand-
out now and then; but that ain't our reg'lar lay. You
ain't swift enough to travel with this bunch, kid, so
you'd better duck. Why we gents, here, if we was added
up is wanted in about twenty-seven cities fer about ev-
erything from rollin' a souse to crackin' a box and
croakin' a bull. You gotta do something before you can
train wid gents like us, see?" The speaker projected a
stubbled jaw, scowled horridly and swept a flattened
palm downward and backward at a right angle to a
hairy arm in eloquent gesture of finality.

The boy had stood with his straight, black eyebrows
puckered into a studious frown, drinking in every word.
Now he straightened up. "I guess I made a mistake," he
said, apologetically. "You ain't tramps at all. You're