"This is no place for you to beg. Step out where
people can see you."

"I'm hungry, mister." He had now taken in the
width of O'Day's shoulders and the length of his forearm.
He had also seen the stick.

Felix stepped back one pace and slipped his hand
down the blackthorn. "Move on, I tell you, where I
can look you over--quick!--I mean it."

"I ain't much to look at." The threat was out of
his voice now. "I ain't eaten nothin' since yisterday,
mister, and I got that out of a ash-barrel. I'm up agin
it hard. Can't you see I ain't lyin'? You ain't never
starved or you'd know. You ain't--" He wavered,
his eyes glittering, edged a step nearer, and with a
quick lunge made a grab for O'Day's watch.

Felix sidestepped with the agility of a cat, struck
straight out from the shoulder, and, with a twist of his
fingers in the tramp's neck-cloth, slammed him flat
against the wall, where he crouched, gasping for breath.
"Oh, that's it, is it?" he said calmly, loosening his
hold.

The man raised both hands in supplication. "Don't
kill me! Listen to me--I ain't no thief--I'm desperate.
When you didn't give me nothin' and I got on to the
watch--I got crazy. I'm glad I didn't git it. I been