The Autobiography of a Super-Tramp

Who would have dreamt that so many well known beggars would have met together at one camp, without any prearranged plans? The time was morning and the scene was on the outskirts of Pittsburg, and the characters were Philadelphia Slim and Wee Shorty, who had all night ridden the freight car and had now dismounted near the camp, which they knew of old. They both had cold victuals in plenty, with dry coffee and sugar, and they were not long in making a blaze and fetching water from the spring before they were seated comfortably to their breakfast, after which they intended to sleep, for they were more weary than working men.

They were not without money; for Wee Shorty and Slim had, the day previous, been encamped with others about a hundred miles from the present spot, at which place there had come to the camp an unfortunate blacksmith who possessed society papers but lacked courage to beg with them. On which Wee Shorty had conceived a most daring plan, which was to borrow the aforesaid papers, with the blacksmith's consent, and to make his way to the nearest blacksmith's shop. With this idea in his mind the Wee Man had bound his hand in white linen, so that he could plead disablement in case the blacksmith doubted him to be the legitimate owner of the papers, and to prove his veracity, would test him with a little job. After binding his hand in this way, Wee Shorty, who was no more than five feet in height, and who had small white hands and a pale face, and whose weight never exceeded seven stone and a half, and who looked more like a sickly tailor than a blacksmith -- after taking this precaution, Wee Shorty made his way to the blacksmith's shop. In less than twenty minutes he had returned with a dollar in small change, and had returned the poor blacksmith his papers, and generously given him one-fourth of his makings. Yes, it would indeed be a hard town if this wee fellow failed to make money.