railroad embankment and the bank of a river. But no hobo was the
man. So deep-sunk was he in the social abyss that a proper hobo
would not sit by the same fire with him. A gay-cat, who is an
ignorant new-comer on the "Road," might sit with such as he, but
only long enough to learn better. Even low down bindle-stiffs and
stew-bums, after a once-over, would have passed this man by. A
genuine hobo, a couple of punks, or a bunch of tender-yeared road-
kids might have gone through his rags for any stray pennies or
nickels and kicked him out into the darkness. Even an alki-stiff
would have reckoned himself immeasurably superior.

For this man was that hybrid of tramp-land, an alki-stiff that has
degenerated into a stew-bum, with so little self-respect that he
will never "boil-up," and with so little pride that he will eat out
of a garbage can. He was truly horrible-appearing. He might have
been sixty years of age; he might have been ninety. His garments
might have been discarded by a rag-picker. Beside him, an unrolled
bundle showed itself as consisting of a ragged overcoat and
containing an empty and smoke-blackened tomato can, an empty and
battered condensed milk can, some dog-meat partly wrapped in brown
paper and evidently begged from some butcher-shop, a carrot that
had been run over in the street by a wagon-wheel, three greenish-
cankered and decayed potatoes, and a sugar-bun with a mouthful
bitten from it and rescued from the gutter, as was made patent by
the gutter-filth that still encrusted it.

A prodigious growth of whiskers, greyish-dirty and untrimmed for
years, sprouted from his face. This hirsute growth should have
been white, but the season was summer and it had not been exposed
to a rain-shower for some time. What was visible of the face