Fur what ARE you going to do
next? First thing you know, you WILL be a reg'lar
tramp, which some folks can't be made to see you
ain't now." And jest when I was thinking that, a
feller comes down the front steps of that house on
the jump and nabs me by the coat collar.
"Did you come out of this house?" he
asts.
"I did," I says, wondering what next.
"Back in you go, then," he says, marching me
forward toward them front steps, "they've got
smallpox in there."
I like to of jumped loose when he says that.
"Smallpox ain't no inducement to me, mister,"
I tells him. But he twisted my coat collar tight
and dug his thumbs into my neck, all the time
helping me onward with his knee from behind,
and I seen they wasn't no use pulling back. I
could probable of licked that man, but they's
no system in mixing up with them well-dressed men
in towns where they think you are a tramp. The
judge will give you the worst of it.
He rung the door bell and the girl that opened
the door she looked kind o' surprised when she
seen me, and in we went.
"Tell Professor Booth that Doctor Wilkins
wants to see him again," says the man a-holt o'
me, not letting loose none. And we says nothing
further till the perfessor comes, which he does,
slow and absent-minded. When he seen me he
took off his glasses so's he could see me better, and
he says:
"What is that you have there, Doctor
Wilkins?"
"A guest for you," says Doctor Wilkins, grinning
all over hisself.
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