“I am ashamed of myself,” said Tony bitterly. “I’m nothing but a tramp, begging my bread from door to door, sleeping in barns, outhouses, in the fields, anywhere I can. I’m as ignorant as a boy of eight. I can just read and that’s all.” “You know as much as I do.” “That don’t satisfy me. When I grow up I don’t want to be——” Tony hesitated. “You don’t want to be like me. Is that it?” asked Rudolph angrily. “No, I don’t want to be like you,” answered Tony boldly. “I want to have a home, and a business, and to live like other people.” “Humph!” muttered Rudolph, fixing his eyes thoughtfully upon his young companion. “This is something new. You never talked like that before.” “But I’ve felt like that plenty of times. I’m tired of being a tramp.” “Then you’re a fool. There’s no life so free and independent. You can go where you please, with no one to order you here nor there, the scene changing always, instead of being obliged to look always upon the same people and the same fields.” “What’s the good of it all? I’m tired of it. I’ve got no home, and never had any.” “You’ve got no spirit. You’re only fit for a farmboy or an apprentice.” “I wish I was either one.” “Sit down here if you are tired,” said the man abruptly, throwing himself down under a wide-spreading tree by the roadside. Tony stretched himself out at a little distance, and uttered a sigh of relief as he found himself permitted to rest. “Have you been thinking of this long?” asked Rudolph. “Of what?” “Of not liking to be a tramp?” “Yes.” “You have not spoken of it before.” “I’ve been thinking of it more lately.” “How did that come?” “I’ll tell you,” said Tony. “Don’t you remember last week when we passed by a schoolhouse? It was recess, and the boys were out at play. While you were away a few minutes, one of the boys sat down by me and talked. He told me what he was studying, and what he was going to do when he got older, and then he asked me about myself.” “What did you tell him?” “What did I tell him?” said Tony bitterly. “I told him that I was a tramp, and that when I got older I should be a tramp still.” “Well,” said Rudolph sharply, “what then?” “The boy told me I ought to get some regular work to do, and grow into a respectable member of society. He said that his father would help me, he thought, and——” “So you want to leave me, do you?” demanded Rudolph fiercely. “Is that what you’re coming to, my chicken?” “It isn’t that so much as the life you make me lead. I want to leave that, Rudolph.” “Well, you can’t do it,” said the man shortly. “Why not?” “I say so, and that’s enough.” Tony was silent for a moment. He was not greatly disappointed, for he expected a refusal. He changed the subject. “Rudolph,” he said, “there’s something else I want to ask you about.” “Well?” “Who am I?” “Who are you? A young fool,” muttered the tramp, but he appeared a little uneasy at the question. “I want to know something about my father and mother.”