The Trail of the Tramp: By A-No. 1, the Famous Tramp, Written by Himself from Actual Experiences of His Own LifeA-No. 1
General
The Trail of the Tramp: By A-No. 1, the Famous Tramp, Written by Himself from Actual Experiences of His Own Life
A-No. 1
Tramps
After this introduction Bunko Bill invited Slippery and Joe to make
their home with them during their sojourn in Chicago, which offer was
readily accepted and then all sat down to dine. After dinner Slippery
under the pretense of wishing to show Joe the city, managed to keep out
of complications which might have been caused by some of the inmates too
closely questioning the lad, and he took the boy for a walk to the
nearby shores of Lake Michigan.
After Joe had enjoyed for some time the beauty of the marine scenery
that spread like a gigantic panorama before his eyes, he broke the
silence by bluntly asking Slippery how and when they were to meet his
brother Jim. Slippery assured Joe and quieted him by saying that it
would be merely a matter of days before they would meet Jim in the
street in the same manner that they had met Boston Frank.
They returned to the flat in time to join the others at supper, and
after this had been served Joe wondered why one after another, all the
members of the gang cautiously slipped out of the door and vanished down
the stairway with the sole exception of "Dippy Marie", who showed them
to their bedroom.
In the morning Boston Frank made a call at the flat, and behind locked
doors had a long conference with Slippery and the others. After his
visit Slippery became a busy man and Joe watched him oiling, filing and
tempering a collection of jimmies, nippers, wedges, pliers, saws, and
other such tools for which an expert mechanic could find a proper use.
When Joe carelessly picked up a small bottle that stood upon the table
before Slippery, the yegg's face turned pale, and then he explained to
the boy who too commenced to shudder the longer he listened, that the
harmless looking liquid in the bottle was fearfully dangerous
nitro-glycerine.
The following afternoon Boston Frank made a second visit and then he and
Slippery, each carrying a heavy satchel filled with the tools Slippery
had so carefully looked after, followed by Joe, around whose left leg
they had bandaged, despite his most vehement protests, the small bottle
containing the deadly explosive, left the flat. They took a street car
to the railroad station, where Boston Frank purchased tickets to Dixon,
one of the prettiest and most hustling cities in western Illinois. Soon
they were rolling out of the railroad yards and across the fertile
plains and arrived at their destination late in the night.
They left the train from the rear platform of the last Pullman, and
climbed to the ground from the opposite side of the station platform,
and after they had hurriedly walked about a mile in the darkness, Boston
Frank stopped at a barn, and while Slippery and Joe walked ahead, he
noiselessly opened the barn door and after hitching the owner's fastest
horse to his best buggy he leisurely overtook the others and made them
climb in, after they had placed the heavy satchels in the buggy's body,
and then he carefully drove the horse on into the night.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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