Eight months of roughing it on the Road had worked many changes in my temperament, ways of calculating, and general appearance. I was no longer the youth who had jumped out of that second-story window and made for parts unknown. Had it been necessary, so tough and hardened had my physique become, that on arriving in Hoboken, I could have done myself credit, I think, in getting out of a third-story window. I was thin and scrawny, to be sure, but such characteristics are most deceiving to the observer unacquainted with tramp life. They may mean disease, of course, but more frequently good health, and in my case it was decidedly the latter. Whatever else hoboing had done or failed to do for me, it had steeled my muscles, tightened up my nerve, and jostled my self-reliance into a thoroughly working condition. Many a vacation in recent years, so far as mere health is concerned, might have been spent with profit on the Road. But eighteen years ago it was a different matter. _Die Ferne_ as such was at least temporarily under control; I had become tired of simply drifting, and whether I should find a home abroad or not, the outlook could hardly be much darker over seas than in my own country. I had some knowledge of foreign languages, and knew that, at a pinch, I could retreat to England, or to one of her colonies, if Germany should prove inhospitable. How to get across was the main problem. The cattle-ships were over-manned, it seemed, and the prospects of succeeding as a stowaway were pronounced bad. I finally heard of the corpulent Hebrew and the "Bankrupps" Club in Hoboken. A German sailor told me about the place, describing the cellar as a refuge for "gebusted" Europeans, who were prepared to work their way back to their old country homes as coal-passers. The sailor said that any one, European or not, was welcome at the club, provided he looked able to stand the trip. The Hebrew received two dollars from the steamship companies for every man he succeeded in shipping. My first interview with this man, how he lorded it over me and how I answered him back--these things are as vivid to me to-day as they were years ago. "Du bist zu schwach" (you are too weak), he told me on hearing of my desire for a coal trimmer's berth. "Pig mens are necessary for dat vork," and his large Oriental eyes ran disdainfully over my shabby appearance. "Never you mind how _schwach_ I am," I assured him; "that's my look-out. See here! I'll give you two dollars besides what the company gives you, if you'll get me a berth." Again the Oriental's eyes rolled, and closed. "Vell," the man returned at last, "you can sleep downstairs, but I t'ink you are _zu schwach_."