On landing at Jay Street, Whitey asked me where I was going. I told him that I was afraid we must part company, and that I should have to walk up to Harlem. "I hate to see you do that," he said, "for it's ag'in' the tramp natur' to like to hear of drilling [walking]. If you'll wait for me up here on Broadway, I'll go over to the post-office and hustle your car-fare." I thanked him, and waited on a corner for about five minutes, when, true enough, he returned with sufficient money for car-fare and slight refreshments over in the Bowery together. "Whitey, so long," I said; "be good to yourself." "So long, Cigarette; hope I'll see you again." I left him standing in front of the Old Tree House, our ways henceforth forever separate, but as kindly sentiments inhabiting our bosoms as ever fell to the lot of knights of the road. * * * * * For every voluntary vagrant there is a voluntary taxpayer, and in the persons of these three hundred tramps I met three hundred voluntarily taxed citizens of the State of New York. V THE TRAMP AND THE RAILROADS Five years had elapsed since my last journey with the hoboes--indeed, since I had so much as seen them. Study and recreation took me to Europe in the autumn of 1893, and I did not return to this country till the spring of 1898. Newspaper clippings containing accounts of the movements of the hoboes, and stories about their life, occasionally reached me, and once there came an invitation to be present at an Anti-Tramp Congress, but beyond this I heard very little about my old companions of the road. I always thought of them, however, when I saw the European vagabond trudging along on the public turnpikes, and wondered whether they were still permitted to travel on the railroads in their "side-door Pullmans" (box-cars) as they had done, and as they taught me to do when I was among them. In eastern Prussia I once stopped to talk with a foot-sore old wanderer on the _Chaussée_, and told him of the way the American tramp travels. "Ach, how beautiful that must be!" he exclaimed. "And to think that they would probably hang us poor fellows here in the Fatherland if we should try to ride in that fashion! In truth, son, a republic is the only place for the poor and outcast."